WAGNER HILLS: DRUG PROGRAM IN JEOPARDY

Wagner Hills Farm Society Wants To Stay Substance-Free.

Wagner Hills Farm Society is struggling to stay substance-free.

The Aldergrove healing and recovery centre is in danger of losing
government funding unless it takes in clients on methadone.

"We want to make it clear that Wagner Hills is not slamming people who are
on methadone," Wagner Hills Executive Director Helmut Boehm said, "but we
are saying that freedom from methadone addiction is available to all
through a relationship with Jesus Christ."

Methadone is a highly addictive, legal substitute for heroin.

On April 1, Addictions Services unilaterally changed its medications policy
to include methadone as a prescription medication. This means that
Addiction Services-funded recovery programs must now accept clients on
methadone.

Wagner Hills has been licensed as a Community Care Facility since 1988, and
has a yearly contract for $18,598 with Provincial Addictions Services.
Addiction Services has given an ultimatum to Wagner Hills to adopt this
"methadone-maintenance" policy, or lose its contract.

This could put the farm in jeopardy. It has been serving the Lower Mainland
and B.C. since 1981 by promoting healing and recovery in a Christian
community for men with addictions. More than 1,000 men have sought help in
the program, which accommodates 20 to 23 men on a working farm. A staff of
eight, most of whom live on the farm, volunteer, and past clients encourage
residents in their abstinence-based, spiritually-empowered recovery.

In a press release, Wagner Hills stated that it cannot "compromise our
calling to facilitate true freedom and recovery for those who come seeking
help."

"But we hope to continue our cooperative arrangement with the provincial
government," Boehm said. "We hope our present government will take a second
look at this."

Wagner Hills client Dave Gillies, 40, is a recovering heroin addict who
knows the dangers of heroin and methadone first hand. He said he came to
the Aldergrove farm from the "eye of the storm": downtown Vancouver's
Hastings Street.

Gillies saw several of his friends end up on methadone. "Coming off heroin
is hard, but methadone is much worse. The withdrawal is gruesome. You are
no better off being a slave to methadone."

He added that Methadone is "just another substance" and everyone at Wagner
Hills is substance-free.

Gillies, who has been clean for three weeks, hopes the Ministry will come
to its senses and continue with its funding. He said the farm, with its
wide open spaces, green grass, and spiritual teachings, has been a godsend:
"Without this facility, it would be hopeless for myself."