TAKING ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Community Voices Concerns And Suggests Solutions

Addiction impacts everyone," says Lauren Casey, National Coordinator
for the Canadian National Coalition of Experiential Women and a former
drug user. "I know many mainstream folk who have, at some time, come
across the issue in their own families."

Casey was one of the community respondents at the second Voices of
Substance community dialogue, Approaches to Substance Use in Victoria,
which took place last Wednesday at the Central Baptist Church on
Pandora Street.

Voices of Substance is a group of concerned citizens committed to
fostering public dialogue and collaborative action on
substance-related issues in Victoria. The first annual community
dialogue--a day-long event held in June, 2006--provided a general
introduction to the issues; this year, the discussion focused
specifically on Victoria.

The event was attended by about 120 people from a cross-section of the
community, including people from local social service agencies, family
and friends of drug users, policy makers, concerned citizens and
former and current drug users.

Mike Peck, a founding member of the Society of Living Intravenous Drug
Users and a street outreach worker, says the voices of experiential
people--those who struggle or have struggled with substance
addiction--are integral to solution-focused discussions. "Having
people who understand the whole problem of addiction and what is
required to overcome it gives us an understanding of where we need to
go," says Peck.

The evening's keynote speaker was Dr. Benedikt Fischer, a researcher
at the University of Victoria's Centre for Addictions Research of
British Columbia. Fischer presented data on trends in illicit
substance use in Victoria and discussed the CARBC feasability study on
supervised consumption sites commissioned by the Vancouver Island
Health Authority and the City of Victoria. His presentation was
followed by community respondents from indigenous, gendered and
substance user perspectives.

After the presentations, a community discussion was set up using an
approach called "open space." Connie Carter, a drug policy researcher
and member of Voices of Substance, describes open space as "democracy
and chaos in action."

"We used it to see if we could increase participation and to let the
participants decide what they wanted to talk about," says Carter. A
moderator asked the participants to identify topics related to the
presentations around which discussion groups were formed. "It's kind
of a jam session for policy and community development," says Carter.
"We got a sense of what people's concerns were across a range of
issues and came away with a lot of good information."

"A big concern for people is the treatment system--both having
adequate treatment support and support for afterwards," says Carter.
According to VIHA's feasability study, there are an estimated 1,500 to
2,000 injection drug users and 500 to 800 crystal methamphetamine
users in Victoria. With only seven adult beds for alcohol and drug
detox and another 10 for stabilization--where you can go after detox
if you are not ready to go home--participants agree that Victoria
isn't giving addicts the support they need.

"The window of opportunity is not large," says Carter. "If a person
can't get in to detox they can disappear back to the street." The
discussion group on treatment systems identified the need for more
flexible treatment and more support services for after detox including
housing and counselling.

The discussions also resulted in what Carter calls "pledges of
action." In the fall, Voices of Substance hopes to sponsor a meeting
of family and friends of drug users in an effort to create a group
like From Grief to Action in Vancouver who support and advocate for
drug users and their families and friends.

Voices of Substance plans to compile the results of the evening's
discussions into a report they hope will give key policy makers an
idea of the community's concerns.

During his presentation, Fischer talked about a divide between the
people who are affected by substance abuse and those who make
decisions. "Communities need to take it into their own hands to do
things to alleviate problems," he said. "Do not expect this to happen
from the federal levels. Communities have to act and law and policy
will follow."

"We have close to 2000 overdose deaths in Canada each year and many
thousands of hep C and HIV infections," noted Fischer. "It's a human
rights issue as much as health and safety issue."