NUNAVIK ADDICTION GOES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Advisors Say Study Will Help Inuit Around The World

Advisors to a research team in Nunavik hope a study beginning this month
will lead to better treatment facilities for Inuit alcoholics and drug addicts.

The study, which will take up to three years to complete, specifically
targets youth, in hopes of better understanding their attitudes towards
drug and alcohol.

A team of researchers from L'universite du Quebec a Trois-Rivieres will
meet with students, ranging in age from 11 to 18, at Jaanimmarik School in
Kuujjuaq this week, to ask them about their habits and feelings related to
drugs and alcohol.

The researchers hope to compile the results by September, and continue
their work in three other Nunavik villages, including in-depth interviews
with parents and community leaders.

Pierre Rioux, drug and substance abuse officer at the Nunavik Regional
Board of Health and Social Services, said the study results will provide a
tool to assess the needs of the region.

"Nunavik is poor in terms of data about substance abuse," he said. "We
really have no data. We have opinions, prejudices, misconceptions and so
on. Everyone agrees it [substance abuse] is a problem in Nunavik, but to
what extent, no one has any idea."

The research team completed the first part of the study in April, but found
their research was based on outdated data that didn't focus on any issues
that might be unique to the Inuit, Rioux said.

Even then, results showed Nunavik suffered a 43-per-cent addiction rate,
compared to 13 per cent in the South. This suggests nearly half of
Nunavimmiut drank alcohol or used drugs in a way that could be described as
addictive.

"That's an example of one indicator of how bad we need services dealing
with drug use," Rioux said, adding that new statistics will enable the
regional government to lobby other governments for additional funding.

Rioux, a recovering alcoholic who quit drinking eight years ago, said
another advantage of the study will be to remove the taboo about discussing
drugs and alcohol in Nunavik.

The study questionnaires will be anonymous, but the results will allow
government to educate people more about the nature of addiction, Rioux said.

"People tend to believe users are doing that because of lack of will,"
Rioux said. "It's an issue that's surrounded by shame and guilt because
people don't know it's a disability, and they isolate themselves.

"Rather than keep it [addiction] in the shadows, we will bring it out in
the open."

Besides Kuujjuaq, researchers also plan to go to two villages on the Hudson
coast, and another community on Ungava Bay. Rioux expects the results will
show a need for more support services in the communities for residents who
have gone through a detoxification program, but find it difficult to avoid
returning to past, abusive habits.

More statistics on substance abuse in Nunavik will mean the region can
lobby for more funding for the region's only treatment centre, described by
its own board chair as "dilapidated" and lacking staff.

Dave Forrest, head of the board for the Isuarsivik centre in Kuujjuaq, said
the 60-year-old building needs to be renovated or completely replaced.

Forrest said the centre mainly takes patients from Nunavut, which lacks a
treatment centre, and also needs an in-house nurse and psychologist.

"We're always clawing and scraping by," Forrest said of the centre's finances.

But if the study leads to boosted funding for the centre, Forrest said
improved drug and alcohol treatment in Kuujjuaq would be a victory for
Inuit across the Northern hemisphere.

"We're separated by artificial boundaries. The Inuit are Inuit whether
they're in Nunavut, the former Soviet Union, western Arctic or Greenland,"
Forrest said. "This is a problem around the circumpolar world."

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, a federal funding agency for
health research, provided $225,000 for the study, expected to produce an
overarching report based on results from the four communities in 2007.