AN EDUCATIONAL VIDEO BY JUNKIES, FOR JUNKIES

If only addicts can really understand other addicts, then a group of local
junkies may have found a way to help injection drug users.

Andy Warhol once said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame. In this case, it's
a 12-minute docudrama on hepatitis C produced by Streetworks, the committed
team of health-care workers that helps injection drug users.

Although a professional director was hired for the job, the video was
mainly put together by Streetworks staff and nine drug addicts who agreed
to participate (seven in the video and two behind the scenes).

A $15,000 Health Canada grant funded the project.

Streetworks figured the best way to reach out to IDUs, as injection drug
users are known, was to use real-life addicts to promote harm-reduction
strategies.

In other words, if you've already got hepatitis C, here's how to stay as
healthy as you can and avoid passing on the virus to others.

And if you're an addict and you're virus-free, here's how to stay that way.

It's an educational video by junkies for junkies.

Dan and Carol, two of the addicts featured in the video, figure if they can
prevent even one junkie from getting hepatitis C - or HIV - it was
worthwhile participating in the project.

"It's kind of an unwritten law of the land among street people," says Dan.
"Street people help each other out."

The video, entitled Clean Points, was filmed in March and will have its
debut later this month at the Boyle Street Co-op in a special showing for
community health experts.

Then copies will be available for distribution to health-care agencies
across the country.

Here in Edmonton, it will be shown in the Streetworks van, which cruises
the inner city nightly offering advice to addicts and sex-trade workers on
everything from needle exchange and safe sex to immunization and basic
first aid.

The video will also be shown at the team's six needle-exchange sites.

"They need resources that are accessible and realistic for their lives,"
says Streetworks nurse Maggie Maxwell, who headed the video project.

"Anywhere from 60% to 80% of people who inject drugs have hepatitis C. It's
a big issue. It affects a lot of lives."

There's been a lot of emphasis on HIV/AIDS in recent years, she adds, but
not enough on hepatitis C, which was only identified in 1989.

While hepatitis C doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence, it can make
people's lives pretty limiting. There is no vaccine and no cure.

Neither Dan nor Carol, both 38, who have been together for five years, can
work because the virus has caused them so much fatigue.

In addition, Dan finds it hard to keep food down. He suffers from nausea
and is frequently in pain.

Nevertheless, he considers himself lucky to be alive because he spent a
decade injecting drugs in B.C. He first injected cocaine when he was about
22. "One thing led to another. Lo and behold, I woke up and found myself on
Hastings Street one day. I should be dead."

He moved back to Alberta in 1995 and was diagnosed with hepatitis C shortly
after. Somehow he managed to escape becoming infected with HIV. "The good
Lord was on my side." Two of his brothers died of drug abuse.

Carol first injected cocaine about seven years ago because some pals were
doing it. She was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1998. "It was a bad
choice," she says. "I relapse. It's not that easy when you're an addict. I
stop and start."

Both use morphine and cocaine, injecting about once a week. The addicts in
the video talk frankly about how IDUs can avoid getting hepatitis C. Don't
share needles or other drug paraphernalia. Practise safe sex. Make sure
your tattoo equipment is sterilized. Don't use someone else's razor,
toothbrush or nail clippers.

Better yet, don't do drugs at all, say Dan and Carol.

"I was hooked from the first fix," recalls Dan. "It's not a pretty life.
It's a violent life."

Adds Carol: There's nothing glamorous about it."