BATTLE RIVER DRUG RESPONSE TASK FORCE LAUNCHES HANDBOOK

Teachers, parents and community members have a new tool for helping young
people who are involved in the use of illegal drugs.

Responding to Youth Involved With Drugs: A Guide to Working Together, was
officially launched by the Battle River Drug Response Task Force February 2.

Developed by the Drug Response Task Force with input from 15 community
agencies and funding from East Central Health, Battle River School Division
#31 and AADAC, Responding to Youth contains information about the various
kinds of drugs, strategies for the prevention of drug use, and suggestions
on what to do in the event drug use is suspected. It also contains flow
charts showing how agencies can work together to improve and enhance
service delivery, resources from AADAC and the police, and testimonials
from youth who have used Crystal Meth in the past.

"This handbook is a by-product of our community's desire to respond
positively and proactively to an increasing use of illegal drugs in our
community," said Drug Response Task Force chair Kerry Laberge, the first of
four launch ceremony speakers. "The creation ... was founded on the
principle that almost everyone who encounters a young person using drugs is
not a trained counsellor."

Battle River School Division #31 superintendent Dr. Warren Phillips
commended BRRD board trustees for realizing there is a serious problem with
the use of drugs by area youth and for making all the necessary moral and
financial commitments.

"Over the last year and a half the board has committed somewhere in the
neighbourhood of $130,000 towards this particular effort. I think that
speaks very well of a group of people who recognized that education is more
than just what happens in the classroom; that we have to have healthy
people coming to school to be successful in education."

Dr. Phillips said BRRD #31 is very concerned about the use of Crystal Meth,
which is "perhaps the most destructive of all drugs in use today," and has
the potential to destroy not only the person who uses it, but families and,
in many places, entire communities.

"Crystal Meth is highly addictive and quickly becomes very toxic to the
user," he said. "It is relatively easy to acquire and produces a very
intense high, so it remains the drug of choice. And I think it is very
important that there be a message from the entire community that that not
be something that is used by people. I think it is very important that we
as a group say to young people in particular that you should stay away from
Crystal Meth."

Along with expressing his pleasure with the board, Dr. Phillips commended
the Battle River Drug Response Task Force for being an "outstanding example
of what can happen when a number of agencies come together through
determination and commitment to work to eradicate our community of such a
terrible scourge as this particular drug."

Minister of Children's Services and Sherwood Park MLA Iris Evans encouraged
the Drug Response Task Force to keep talking about what it has accomplished
over its short history so that other communities will be encouraged in the
belief that they, too, can work to improve lives.

"If I could have this handbook replicated in every community, I know we
would save children, I know we would save families, and I know that we
would save marriages. And I know, if it comes right down to it, we would
save money because we would be efficiently protecting before we get into
the terrible treatment phase."

Evans also went on to thank the Drug Response Task Force and its partners
for not just talking about the problem but acting.

"It is not the money that really makes the difference," she said. "It is
the heart and the minds and souls of everyone who is here."

Wetaskiwin-Camrose MLA LeRoy Johnson said the handbook is important in that
it provides a guide for people to follow. "So often when people come
together everyone has an idea and everyone wants to do their own thing, but
you all have to work from one page," said Johnson. "And the most important
thing you can do is come up with a guide, a Bible almost, something that
everyone can work from so you're working on the same page."

The Battle River Drug Response Task Force was formed after a meeting on
October 17, 2002, where frontline workers across all agencies indicated
their concern with the increasing workload related to assisting youth from
the damaging effects of Crystal Meth. It was acknowledged by task force
members at that time that, although increasing usage of Crystal Meth was
the catalyst that brought them together, it is not the only drug young
people are using, and all forms of drug and alcohol abuse need to be addressed.

Agencies playing a role on the Battle River Drug Response Task Force are:
AADAC, Alberta Mental Health, Battle River Regional Division, Camrose and
District Support Services, Camrose Boys and Girls Club, Camrose Ministerial
Association, Camrose Police Service, the City of Camrose Social Planning
Advisory Committee, East Central Alberta Child and Family Services, East
Central Health, Elk Island Catholic School Division, The Open Door, RCMP
and St. Mary's Hospital.