GETTING A FIX ON THE LOCAL DRUG PROBLEM

A community forum held between two packed screenings of the movie Fix: The
Story of an Addicted City highlighted the need for more drug addiction
resources.

"We're probably the only community of this size in the Interior that does
not have a street nursing program," Colleen Maloney, a public health nurse
with the Penticton Health Centre, said during Thursday's forum held at
Pen-Mar Cinema Theatre.

Fix - currently touring cities across B.C.'s Interior and Vancouver Island
- - is an award-winning documentary that tells in graphic details the story
of recent efforts to combat the drug problems that haunt Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside.

"These problems do exist in Penticton and we're doing our best...to deal
with them," said Maloney. "One of the things we're fortunate in having is a
methadone program."

The local heroin-replacement program has handled over 130 cases since it
opened in 1996, she said. And it led to a needle exchange program which
last year exchanged over 40,000 needles, said Maloney. Over 90 per cent of
the 80 program participants returned their used needles for clean ones, she
said. "That's fantastic," she said.

But the program lacks funding and too few people - including health care
professionals - know about it, said Maloney.

It is basically run out of a "closet" in the Penticton Health Unit at 740
Carmi Ave, she said - a location makes outreach difficult, said Maloney.
"It's nowhere near downtown where a lot of our users would find it much
more convenient," she said. "We're still working on that (and) we have some
potential prospects for the fall."

Volunteers may be needed in the fall, said Maloney. The public in the
meantime can play a role by learning more about the issues surrounding
drugs, she said.

Those issues exist in every community, said former Vancouver mayor Phil
Owen who was among the forum participants.

The three-term mayor chose not to run in the last election after his own
party told him he would have to compete for its candidacy.

This internal fight followed after Owen's introduction of the so-called
"four-pillars" approach - prevention, treatment, enforcement and
harm-reduction - to deal with Vancouver's drug problem, despite loud
objections from parts of the Vancouver business community.

The approach calls for a coordinated effort among all levels of government
to achieve a balance of public health solutions and public order.

The outright liberalization of drug use is not the answer to the drug
problem, he said, nor alone is enhanced enforcement.

"It's not a sustainable approach," he said. "It is good for the next
election. It is good for media. But it really does nothing to get to the
core of the problem."

Sixteen year olds addicted to heroin are not criminals, said Owen. If they
are not sick, what are they? he asked. "Are you going to throw them into
jail for five years?"

At the same time, it is time to get tough on non-using drug dealers whom
Owen calls "murderers."

While Owen admits his message draws skepticism in many conservative parts
of the Interior, it is resonates among groups such as youth and First Nations.

And politicians who oppose progressive drug policies do so at their own
political peril because the last municipal election in Vancouver was won
and lost over the issue of drugs, he said. Candidates who favoured reform
won while those who did not, or waffled, lost, he said.

"We have to get real," said Owen. "We have to face the world as it is, not
as we remember it or the way we would like it to be."