PROVINCE GETS TOUGH ON SNIFF WITH NEW LAW

Will Allow Police To Seize Solvents

POLICE in Manitoba will soon have the power to seize nail polish, Lysol and
glue from solvent addicts and people who sell them to the addicts under new
legislation introduced yesterday.

Health Minister Dave Chomiak is fulfilling a campaign promise by amending
the Public Health Act to try and crack down on the number of
solvent-addicted Manitobans.

"For some time people involved in this area have suggested that what we
have to do is get to the people who supply and provide these substances,"
Chomiak said.

Previously, these substances could only be seized if they were being sold
to minors for the express purpose of being used as inhalants. Now, this
extends the law to retailers selling to anyone for use as an inhalant.

Everything from nail polish remover to household cleaners to paint is
covered under the law. The Manitoba Non-Potable Alcohol and Inhalant Abuse
Committee, which has lobbied the province to introduce stricter laws for
more than a decade, estimates there are more than 1,400 everyday substances
available for purchase that could be used as inhalants.

New powers Police and public health inspectors will also have powers under
the new act to search someone suspected of having the substances for use as
sniff, including search of an individual, their car, backpack, or other
containers on their person. Chomiak said if substances are seized, the
matter then has to go before a justice of the peace for resolution.

Retailers caught selling sniff to addicts can lose their licence to sell
goods and services or gasoline.

That aspect worries Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand,
who believes aboriginals and Metis will be unfairly targeted by retailers
afraid of getting nailed.

"I'm leery of putting pressure on retailers to be judge and jury,"
Chartrand said.

He said he knows of one Metis man who was turned away at a Winnipeg
drugstore when he tried to buy cleaning supplies for his wife, to use as
cleaning supplies.

'Torn to shreds' "He was torn to shreds," Chartrand said. "Here was a grown
man, he was crying and embarrassed."

However, Chartrand said much of the new bill is positive, including going
after people who buy solvents in bulk only to repackage them and sell them
to addicts on the street. He said such people belong in jail.

Solvent addiction is incredibly life-threatening. The initial reactions of
feeling high and having vivid fantasies are juxtaposed with dizziness,
coughing, sneezing, nausea, drooling, slow reflexes, rapid heart beat and
low blood pressure.

Longer-term effects include blurred vision, cramps, slurred speech,
seizures, nerve damage, muscle weakness, depression, fatigue, tremors, lung
damage, brain damage and loss of consciousness.

Dr. Ab Chudley, a pediatrician and professor of child health at the
University of Manitoba, has spent years studying the effects of substance
abuse, including inhalants, on babies. He recently completed a study of 56
babies born to sniff-addicted mothers at the Health Sciences Centre over
the last three years, in which he saw a greater incidence of birth defects,
severe language delays and brain damage.