FORUM EXPOSES DRUG USE IN CITY

Director Nettie Wild asked for a show of hands at Wednesday's screening of
Fix: The Story of An Addicted City.

The award-winning documentary filmmaker wanted to know how many audience
members in the Paramount Theatre knew of someone using cocaine.

Scores of hands shot up.

"I think it's safe to say we have a real cross-section of people in the
audience," she said. "It's not just people who are street-entrenched (who
are drug users)."

Only a scattering of hands went up when Wild asked about injection drug
users, an indication perhaps of the contrast between Vancouver's drug
epidemic and Kamloops' own drug abuse problems.

More than 300 people took in Fix at Wednesday's screening of the new
documentary, which shadows drug users, activists and politicians in a
movement to establish a harm-reduction approach to addiction.

Many remained behind to take in a community forum on the issues,
particularly as they relate to Kamloops.

Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen, who plays a prominent role in the
documentary, and a panel of Kamloops outreach workers answered their questions.

Owen said the federal ministries of justice and health are working on the
legal framework to enable safe injection sites to be established in major
cities across Canada.

"I think it's going to evolve and will probably take place within the next
six months," Owen said.

The panel cautioned that safe injection sites are but one element of many
in the strategy of harm reduction, which calls for a sea change in the way
society views drug addiction.

The so-called war on drugs has failed dismally, advocates say. What is
needed is a humane approach that treats addiction as the sickness that it is.

"Injection sites are nothing new," Owen said. "They're everywhere. The
proposal is to make it safe.

"They aren't magnets," he added. "They don't bring a lot of drug users into
a place."

Safe injection sites enable early intervention as well as ensuring against
transmission of disease and overdoses, the panel said.

Kamloops is different in some ways, outreach workers noted.

"I definitely do not see drug use the way you see it in the film," said
Stephanie Hyde, a street nurse with Kamloops Street Outreach.

"There is an increase in cocaine use and an increase in injection cocaine
use," said Grace House, a outreach worker with SHOP, Social and Health
Opportunities for People in the Sex Trade.

As a street nurse, Hyde said she distributes anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000
needles a month, another indicator of injection drug use in Kamloops. She
estimated that about 200 people in the city are on a methadone withdrawal
program used to treat heroin addiction, another indication of the severity
of the problem here.

Hyde said it is best to confront the problem openly.

"I actually think that the more we talk about it and get it out in the
open, we'll have a better way of dealing with drug addiction."

A second Kamloops screening and community forum will be held tonight,
starting at 7 p.m. at the Paramount.