URBAN CORRIDOR BEST-SERVED

Alberta's network of methadone clinics has to expand beyond the current
five to serve addicts outside the Edmonton-Calgary urban corridor, say
health-care advocates. Dr. Mat Rose, with Edmonton's Boyle McCauley Health
Centre, said Alberta's clinics offer excellent methadone access, but only
along the province's main urban corridor.

Rose, who works in Edmonton's inner city, estimates there are at least
7,000 to 10,000 opiate drug users in Alberta.

"Every health region should have a methadone program," he said. "Opioid
dependence is a medical condition. Alberta Health needs to recognize the need."

Reports from AIDS prevention groups suggest intravenous drug use in the
Wood Buffalo region is now a problem, said HIV Edmonton executive director
Sherry McKibben.

"Drugs are a problem in the (northern work) camps," she said. Travel
distance isolates northern Alberta users from the Edmonton AADAC clinic,
she said.

HIV North executive director Brenda Moore said Grande Prairie is also
seeing a boom in needle drug use.

"With the expansion of AADAC into Calgary, I would think that Grande
Prairie would be the next location for expansion," Moore said. "Or it
should be."

Fort McMurray faces a similar problem, she said.

The city of 43,000, about 437 km northeast of Edmonton, also has a large
"shadow" population of semi-skilled labour with money to burn.

Diane Lamb, the manager of AADAC's Edmonton and Calgary methadone clinics,
said she favours expansion.

"In an ideal world, absolutely," she said. "The question is, how do we do
that with the resources that we have available?"

To improve access in remote communities, AADAC is partnering with the
Non-Prescription Needle Use Consortium to develop strategies, Lamb said.

Alberta Health spokesman Christianne Dubnyk said the province is committed
to developing a province-wide strategy for dealing with opiate addiction.

"The goal is to establish opiate dependence programs that have
professionals like physicians, pharmacists, AADAC and regional health
authorities together to best meet the needs of patients," she said.