RECOVERY CENTRE LOSES ITS FUNDING

The provincial government has pulled its funding out of an
abstinence-based addiction recovery centre in Langley, because the
centre refuses to incorporate methadone into its recovery strategy.

On Tuesday, Wagner Hills Farm Society executive director Helmut Boehm
held a press conference announcing that its contract with the
government was terminated on May 16.

Addictions Services, now under the Ministry of Health, gave Wagner
Hills an ultimatum to adopt the methadone maintenance policy or lose
$18,598 per year in funding.

After a year of dialogue and protest from Wagner Hills staff, board
of directors and several other centres, the contract was stopped.

The imposed methadone policy would undermine their abstinence-based
philosophy and compromise what Wagner Hills stands for, said Boehm.

"In this policy it was clear we couldn't follow it. It seemed to us
it goes against freedom from addiction," he said.

Wagner Hills believes methadone is a highly addictive substitute for heroin.

The abstinence recovery centre promotes freedom from all addictions,
including legal substances such as alcohol and methadone.

On April 1, 2001, despite widespread protest from recovery groups,
Addictions Services changed its medications policy to include
methadone as a prescription medication, said Boehm.

A client of Wagner Hills spoke at the press conference urging the
government to reconsider.

"I have been at the eye of the storm and this place has been a
godsend for me," said David Gillies, a recovering heroin addict who
came from Hastings Street to the Langley farm for help. "It's a
miracle I'm clean today and without facilities like this, I wouldn't
be here."

Gillies has had friends who have taken methadone as a way of slowly
weaning off of drugs.

"Coming off of heroin is close to death, but the withdrawal from
methadone is gruesome. I see how methadone is seen as an alternative
that alleviates crime, but in the long run people become a slave to
it. It's another substance, and a drug is a drug."

Gillies said he was a daily heroin user who has not only been clean
for nearly a month, but feels good about himself.

Before the press conference, Boehm spoke to Solicitor General Rich Coleman.

"The Liberals are now giving a second look at our contract and I
think it would be wise for them to allow us to focus on abstinence,
especially when they see all the lives that have been changed," Boehm
said.

Coleman didn't provide a time line when a decision would be made, but
pro-mised Boehm he would be speaking to the appropriate people to get
a review underway.

In the meantime Wagner Hills will stay open, in hopes the government
will reconsider.

Wagner Hills claims to have helped more than 1,000 men since it
opened its doors in 1981. The non-profit recovery centre is run
largely by Christian volunteers.