Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force
100 Lombard Street, Suite 205
Toronto, M5C 1M3 647-222-4420
torontoharmreduction@yahoo.ca
supplementary issue: December 2004
Season’s Greetings
&
Best wishes for all good things in 2005!
From the Board and Staff of The Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
…from the Annual General Meeting, December 3rd, 2004
Some time ago, when I was an employee rather than a free-lancer, I would have periodical ―performance
appraisals‖, in which what I accomplished (or didn‘t) at work was compared with what was in my job
description. I have decided to frame this year‘s annual report in a similar manner, and look at how our
accomplishments over the year stack up against our objectives, as stated in our Bylaw.
Objectives, of course, can be somewhat grandiose and not immediately attainable in the short term ...
such as our first objective:
1. To reduce individual and community harms associated with the misuse of alcohol and other
drugs.
It is difficult – if not impossible – to measure the degree to which the Task Force has done this. Actually,
we have planted a lot of seeds over the past year, and I believe are truly making a headway toward this
goal. This year, we held educational sessions for the general public as well as for peers and agency staff
– at the rate of more than one per month. Not only have the topics covered in these sessions been varied
and pertinent, but the people attending have come from well beyond the usual harm reduction agencies –
in fact, many came from out of town. People are interested in harm reduction ... and we are responding
to that interest by providing leadership in education.
Also, we participated in the planning and execution of a continuing education course in Harm Reduction
at York University. The course has been given twice and was so well received that two additional four-
day sessions are scheduled for the spring. We are engaged in the development of plans for expanding
further in the immediate future.
We continue to take part – as we have for over ten years – in the planning and evaluation of the core
st
course in the Determinants of Community Health, which must be taken by all 1 -year medical students at
the University of Toronto, and to participate on the Faculty of Medicine‘s Community Programs Advisory
Council, of which I am now a vice chair. Because of our presence and our influence, new medical
graduates are increasingly aware of and receptive to harm reduction.
2. To provide a Toronto-wide network of individuals, organisations and groups to share
information, strategies and expertise to reduce individual and community harms associated with
the misuse of alcohol and other drugs.
When we bring people together for our informational and educational events, we provide them not only
with excellent speakers, but also with the incentive to mingle and network over light refreshments.
Common interests are uncovered and connections are made, which further the application of harm
reduction in Toronto. My regret is that – though we have been able to pull in people beyond our typical
constituencies, some important players are missing. I am very pleased to see today marijuana activists
and politicians in the room – but this has become a rare occurrence. There was a time, up to about five
years ago, when some police personnel regularly attended our presentations and participated in our
discussions. Perhaps they will return, when conditions are different. We must develop stronger, broader
alliances with these and other spheres without diluting our vision.
3. To provide public information and education to individuals and community organisations on
reducing harms associated with the misuse of alcohol and other drugs.
Complementing our public education activities, our staff, Holly Kramer, and our core of drug user experts,
on their own as well as in collaboration with others, work ―behind the scenes‖ in panels and on
committees and provide staff development and education on harm reduction. The drug user experts from
the Task Force who participated as presenters in the York University courses were far better, in fact, than
any I have heard in educational presentations. They did not tell horror stories, or speak of their
experience in the bad old days. They were not set up as freaks or poster bunnies. They provided,
instead, useful information with clarity and eloquence. Simply put, they were good and highly informed
educators. What a relief and what a blessing! Our peer work is paying off.
4. To develop and implement Harm Reduction strategies in Toronto.
We are really on track with this: as members of three of the community committees participating in the
planning process, we are actively engaged in developing Toronto‘s drug strategy. We are bringing to
those committees articulate, passionate, reasonable and well-informed voices on behalf of harm
reduction, developing very effective alliances and learning a great deal. We are also playing a very active
role on the Community Advisory Board of NAOMI - the North American Opiate Maintenance Initiative in
Toronto – which is preparing to deliver and evaluate the effectiveness of prescribed heroin to longtime
users who have been repeatedly failed by methadone prescribers.
5. To initiate, conduct, and collaborate in public research into the efficacy of Harm Reduction.
We are not on the mark with this. We do not have the means or the expertise or the money or the staff to
do this ourselves, and this year, other than NAOMI, we haven‘t participated in or nurtured any research
projects. We maintain excellent relationships with a number of researchers, and will undoubtedly do
more in this area ... but it has not been a high priority this year.
6. To develop and maintain a public resource centre of information about Harm Reduction.
This is a project dear to my heart – and a long held dream. We have some resources in our office – but
the office is too small to be open to the public; the materials we have are not catalogued; and we do not
have the staff to provide the kind of service I envision. I had long hoped that a Harm Reduction Resource
Centre would be established at one of the downtown universities, but that does not appear to be likely,
despite personal and professional relationships with both U of T and Ryerson. However, there is a
glimmer interest at York, and we are in there lobbying for this. Keep posted.
Finally ...
7. To liaise with other organisations with related objectives, nationally and internationally.
Obviously, local liaisons are easier to form than are national or international ones, and we have done our
work well here. Among others, we have had a close and productive working relationship with the Safer
Crack Coalition of Toronto (SCUC) and with Public Health – though not especially the city‘s needle
exchange program, The Works, which frankly confounds me. We have spent a considerable amount of
time building a relationship with TEDNA - The Toronto East Downtown Neighbourhood Alliance – but that
has not yet produced substantive results. Liaisons with neighbourhood associations are difficult at best.
Though the stated end goals of the Task Force and some neighbourhood associations may be similar in
very broad terms, the means of achieving them are usually very far apart. Simply talking with each other
cordially and respectfully is perhaps all that can be expected for now. With many neighbourhood
associations, however, this is not merely difficult but impossible. TEDNA has been an exception.
We have had working relationships with various large organisations – St. Michael‘s Hospital comes to
mind first of all (they manage our money) and with key individuals from various organisations, such as the
Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). I
do want to say that the Patrick Smith‘s departure from CAMH, as VP Clinical, is a great loss to harm
reduction in Toronto. Patrick ―gets‖ harm reduction ... and has been quite forthright and fearless in
promoting it. He was always supportive of our work.
Nationally our closest alliance is with the Canadian Harm Reduction Network, and that relationship will be
further enhanced over the coming year as we work with them to develop and host the Task Force‘s web
presence. At the moment the Network has been doing our mailings. Through the Canadian Harm
Reduction Network, the Task Force‘s voice has been heard in on such issues as funding, crack, youth
concerns and drug policy Ottawa, and at international conferences. Our Newsletter circulates to more
than 12,000 people internationally. An article in our Summer issue, which addressed the future of Harm
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Reduction, received enthusiastic responses from people outside Canada, especially in the US and
Australia and was an inspiration for a ―Town Hall‖ session at the recent US harm reduction conference in
New Orleans.
Overarching all our activities is our work with current and former users of illicit drugs – commonly referred
to as peers, a term with which I have great discomfort. These people are and must be the cornerstone
and core of harm reduction. Without their input and overview, harm reduction will reduce itself to just
another politically palatable but ineffective health promotion intervention – or worse, become
professionalised into just another experience of health fascism, as is already happening in some places.
The work of the Task Force with these experienced users of illicit drugs is geared toward empowering
them. It is focussed on enhancing their capabilities in general, particularly those needed for the
dissemination of knowledge and information.
I hope that we are also fostering their skills for community activism. People who use drugs need to
reclaim harm reduction and take over the leadership of the harm reduction movement itself .... drawing
their inspiration from not just the remarkable user group movements in Europe and Australia, but as well
from the work of early AIDS activists – the gay men and women who confronted enmity, indifference and
prejudice with commitment and passion, to see to it that what had to be done was done to stop the deaths
of their brothers and sisters. These people by the way were called many things but were never called
peers.
I will wrap up with a large thank you to our funders: SCPI (Supportive Community Partnerships Initiative)
and DPG (Toronto Public Health‘s Drug Abuse Prevention Program). They have enabled us to do our
work.
Thanks too to our volunteer board – those currently serving (David Collins, Richard Coleman, Chris
Gibson, Tammy McKenzie, and Gale Yardy), as well as to Claudia Mann, who left us earlier this year to
relocate in Labrador.
Considering the fact that we are a very small organisation with one excellent and very dedicated full-time
staff – Holly Kramer – I think that we do pretty well.
Thanks, Holly, for making so much happen with our limited resources. ~ Walter Cavalieri
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With our thanks…
At our AGM on December 3rd, the THRTF recognized the ongoing support and
commitment to our work of the following agencies, organizations and individuals:
All Saints Church Community Centre
Canadian Harm Reduction Network
Centre for Addiction & Mental Health
City of Toronto – Shelter Housing & Support Division
College of Physicians & Surgeons of Ontario
Frank Coburn
Fred Victor Centre
Gerry Leslie
Government of Canada – Supporting Community Partnerships Initiative
Pathways to Healthy Families Program – Jean Tweed Centre
Mic & Sue Finlay
Michael Nurse
Queen West Community Health Centre
Safer Crack Use Coalition
St. Michael’s Hospital – Inner City Health
Toronto Public Health
Valerie Cartledge
York University – Continuing Education
York University – Department of Design
York University – Faculty of Education
Alan Young was our guest speaker at the 2004 AGM
Marijuana mountain built out of molehill
ALAN YOUNG
REASONABLE DOUBT
Having been deeply involved in the fight to change our marijuana laws, I feel some discomfort in
again writing about the debate. But the government continues to weave a web of deception.
We find ourselves in a political twilight zone on the marijuana issue. I do not believe this
government sincerely wishes to change the law but it is unsure how to placate millions of users
and voters. The best way to forestall change in a democracy is to confuse the masses. So for the
past two years this government has promoted the concept of decriminalization by repeatedly
introducing legislation that pleases neither activist nor prohibitionist. To further confuse matters,
there has been a corresponding increase in "reefer madness" misinformation, much of it coming
from the very proponents of the decriminalization bill.
I have been on many TV programs debating members of parliament and police officers who spin
the tired mythology of addiction, mental illness, failing health and the new and improved potent
pot. These spinners may rely upon a touching anecdote knowing that it is bad television if I try to
counter these misleading stories with a dull recitation of data and the nuances of statistical
methodology. The government is able to maintain a low level of fear by relying upon a few true
stories and the occasional fictional narrative. In the process, it obscures the fact that marijuana
has been used by hundreds of millions of people over thousands of years with no discernable
impact on morbidity, mortality or moral decay.
The debate over marijuana law reform exposes the treachery of state control of information.
Within a democracy, one of the greatest threats to freedom is the control of information. Voting,
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making decisions, supporting initiatives only make sense if the choice is grounded in accurate and
complete information. The invasion of Iraq seemed to have some modest justification when
powerful people in control of information led us to believe Saddam had his finger on the chemical
bomb button. Now we know Saddam's fingers posed no risk but it is hard for political leaders to
admit defeat and disgrace. Governments can make bad decisions with the stroke of a pen but
undoing the mistake is like moving a mountain.
When pot use was deemed criminal in 1923, there was no rationale for the prohibition other than
official misinformation. Eighty-one years later, we now know that millions of Canadians smoke
pot. We also know the moderate use of marijuana poses little risk to the user. Clearly, with
millions of Canadians taking a puff here or there, some doing so for many decades, we would
expect to find epidemiological evidence confirming the health risks detected in rats or some hard
evidence that pot smokers are contributing significantly to carnage on the roads. Scientists keep
looking but the evidence is not forthcoming. This is why most Canadians do not support the
criminalization of pot use and why royal commission after royal commission has recommended
reform of the law.
Yet I still see on the front page of some papers glossy photos of cops decked out in chemical
warfare space-suits carrying bushy pot plants out of grow-ops. It turns out the weapons of mass
destruction were not in Baghdad but were scattered all over the streets of Greater Toronto. This
melodramatic photo-op thoroughly confuses the issue. People who have neither the time nor the
inclination to research the true state of affairs would undoubtedly believe that marijuana must be
highly toxic and dangerous if state officials have to don protective gear to uproot a plant.
The media can become a pawn in a government's campaign of misinformation. The grow-op
hysteria has become good copy — almost biblical — with the plagues of fire, fungus and mould.
Of course, every moral panic is built on one or two real tragedies. Homes have burnt down due to
faulty wiring. Homes have been overrun by mould. The occasional tragedy does not constitute an
epidemic, and one would expect an epidemic when the looming presence of criminal law forces
growers into an unregulated black market where there is little incentive to comply with safety
code standards.
Growing marijuana for personal use is safe if done correctly. Similarly, smoking marijuana is safe
for the majority of people. Of course, some people have had bad experiences or suffered personal
hardship from smoking pot. The plant is not everyone's cup of tea, but neither is the vine. The
problem is that state officials will build a mountain out of a molehill to suit their devious
purposes. Small problems become magnified into large-scale, social problems to convince an
unknowing public that an expansion in state power is needed to fight the growing menace. Every
expansion in state power results in a corresponding diminution of individual rights. That's the yin-
yang of politics.
In a dictatorship, people are forced to give up rights at gunpoint. In a democracy, people are
fooled into giving up rights by the creation of unfounded moral panics. Whether the panic is pit
bulls, satanic cults or Quebec separatists, state officials are adept at manipulating and controlling
information. Even if you believe smoking marijuana is a monumental waste of time, you should
be alarmed whenever a government deliberately distorts the truth. What else might it be lying
about?
Alan Young is a law professor, criminal lawyer and author of Justice Defiled: Perverts,
Potheads, Serial Killers & Lawyers (Key Porter).
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COMING UP…
Peer Project:
This year‟s peer project, funded by Toronto Public Health, Drug Prevention Grants, is well
underway. A core group of 6 community members have been meeting since October to develop a
workshop for peer workers, based on the manual produced by and for peers in 2002-3. The
workshop will cover issues such as boundaries, self-care and harm reduction strategies, and will
be piloted early in the new year. If you are a peer worker, or if your agency employs peer
workers who would be interested in attending the pilot workshop, please get in touch with us.
For further information contact project facilitator: Andrew Nolan, andrew@fredvictor.org
Harm Reduction???
How much do we have in common? Harm reduction seems to mean different things to different
people. A variety of mechanisms employed to manage substance use have worked for
individuals…but which methods can be qualified as “harm reduction”?
In early 2005, the THRTF will host the first of a series of roundtable discussions with people who
have used different means to reduce the risks associated with their use, and front line workers
who employ a continuum of strategies to support their clients.
The goal of these discussions is to better understand the diversity of what works, and what
doesn‟t, to minimize risks or harms for those involved with drug use, and to begin to recognize
the extent of what can be considered “harm reduction”. Invitations to the initial meeting will be
distributed in the next few weeks.
Speakers Series:
We are delighted to announce that “Pathways to Healthy Families”, a program of the Jean Tweed
Centre serving pregnant and parenting women with substance use issues will present at the
January 2005 session of the THRTF Speakers Series….venue, date and time TBA.
Front Line Harm Reduction Workers Meeting:
January: Housing is the „Fifth Pillar‟:Toronto‟s New Rent Bank Project
Venue, date and time TBA
Annual Harm Reduction Forum:
Plans for the 2005 annual harm reduction forum, to be held in late March, are in process, and we
invite submissions from potential presenters. Presentations should be between 1.5 and 2 hours in
length, and proposal letters should include a brief overview of the presentation‟s relevance to the
theme of this year‟s forum: “Socio-economic Class and Effects on Substance use and Harm
Reduction Practices/Strategies.”
The deadline for proposals is January 18th, 2005, and these may be submitted by email or regular
mail: torontoharmreduction@yahoo.ca or 100 Lombard St. #205, Toronto, M5C 1M3.
Please note: The THRTF has a very limited travel/accommodation budget for presenters from
outside the GTA.
Website partnership:
The THRTF is pleased to announce that we have formed a partnership with the Canadian Harm
Reduction Network. CHRN has an established, comprehensive website,
www.canadianharmreduction.com and has agreed to add specific THRTF pages to their site!
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Centre for Addiction and Mental Heath, Toronto
Community Stakeholder Information Forum on Upcoming
Opioid User Studies at CAMH
What?
We are inviting key local service provider reps and stakeholders serving the
opioid user population of Toronto for an informal information session on the
upcoming 1) Heroin – Hydromorphone (H-H) Cross-Over Study and 2) North
America Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) Clinical Trial Study
Why?
To provide first-hand information, answer questions, on the status,
nature and purpose of the H-H and NAOMI studies
To actively address rumours and misunderstandings circulating
about these studies, and clarify differences and linkages
To request people’s assistance and encourage participation from
community service providers in subject recruitment efforts
Who?
Researchers/clinicians involved with the H-H and the NAOMI studies will
provide information and answer questions
Where/When?
· Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (ARF site)
33 Russell St., Rm 2029 (The Meeting Centre), Toronto
Monday December 20th 2004, from 3:30 to 5:00pm
Please Note: This is NOT a subject recruitment event
Refreshments will be provided ... your attendance is very much appreciated
For more information please contact Andrew Taylor at 416-535-8501 ext 6279 or
just stop by on the 20th!
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Professional Enrichment Program
HARM REDUCTION
The Division of Continuing Education, York University
Are you a practitioner, administrator or policy advisor/analyst interested in better
understanding and implementing HARM REDUCTION policy and practice within your
organization and community?
Harm Reduction @ York University
This 24-hour non-credit course is designed to introduce service providers,
administrators and policy makers to the basic principles, philosophy and application
of harm reduction.
Harm reduction is a term that refers to a specific set of approaches and
corresponding policies that underlie those approaches to reduce risks for people who
use drugs and/or engage in behaviours that put them “at risk”. This course will be of
interest to a broad range of practitioners, administrators and policy advisors/analysts
interested in better understanding and implementing harm reduction policy and
practice within their organization and community.
Session #1: March 7-10, 2005 (Monday-Thursday) 9am-4pm
Session #2: April 11-15, 2005 (Monday-Thursday) 9am-4pm
Instructor: Diane Riley Ph.D.
Location: York University, Glendon Campus (Bayview and Lawrence)
Cost: $475 plus GST (this includes all program materials)
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.
Marina DeBona-Ross, Program and Logistics Manager
Division of Continuing Education, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies
(Room 107, Atkinson Building)
Email: mdebona@yorku.ca
(Tel) 416-650-8049 (Fax) 416-650-8042
Web site: www.atkinson.yorku.ca/harmreduction
CHECK YOUR POLICY TODAY!
Recently, I received a special notice from my insurance carrier advising me that effective
immediately, loss or damage “…directly or indirectly caused from marijuana grow operations” will
not be covered by my household policy….
~ Holly Kramer, Project Coordinator
10
In the news…from the Toronto Star, 3/12/04
Jury lauds methadone program
STAN JOSEY
STAFF REPORTER
A coroner's jury investigating four drug-related deaths in Oshawa has recommended more
education, regulation and assessment of doctors and pharmacists who regularly prescribe
methadone for the treatment of drug addictions.
The jury concluded methadone use is a valuable program and urged those trying to kick
prescription and other drug habits through controlled drug use to "applaud yourselves" for trying
to improve their lives.
Coroner Dr. William Lucas said he hoped the carefully prepared verdict, with 46
recommendations, would go a long way towards preventing "such tragic and untimely deaths."
Other recommendations:
More care should be taken in collecting evidence and sharing information when drug
toxicity deaths take place.
A study to look at establishing a central prescription drug registry should be done so health
professionals know what other drugs a person is taking.
The province should amend the Regulated Health Professions Act so that the College of
Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario can co-operate with the coroner's office in the investigation
of methadone deaths.
Better tracking of methadone-related deaths and better investigations are needed.
Toronto is tempting a pandemic
TB outbreak in shelter system is a warning to fix problem of the homeless,
By Kathy Hardill
The last century saw more medical advances than ever before in the history of humankind: CT
scanning, magnetic resonance imaging, microvascular surgery — a dizzying list. Which makes it
at all the more ironic that, even as we claim more superiority over the human body, it is the
ancient plagues that now threaten to kill us off in droves.
The World Health Organization tells us to expect the currently mutating avian flu to deliver a
long overdue pandemic predicted to threaten millions of us.
Drug-resistant bacteria thrive, as if to thumb their cellular noses at what begins to look like puny
medical advances not providing much protection after all.
Predictably, it is our cities which act as gigantic petri dishes, incubating viruses and bacteria old
and new.
These tiny organisms seek out ideal growing environments, which they find in poverty — among
our shelters, rooming houses and squats. Like hungry wolves, they wait for the opportunity to
attack first those animals at the edge of the herd weakened by illness, malnutrition, stress.
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We have seen, recently, a virulent norovirus sweep through a Calgary homeless shelter, and sky-
high rates of HIV infection among Vancouver's poorest citizens.
And now in Canada's largest city, more than three years after a tuberculosis outbreak began in its
shelter system, we have a beleaguered public health department scrambling to locate the source
person whose undetected TB has infected two shelter workers with active TB. So concerned are
health officials that they have begun the laborious process of testing as many as 4,000 homeless
individuals across the city.
You know what they say: Every time you repeat history, it gets more expensive. More than 100
years ago, New York City's commissioner of public health, Hermann Biggs, said: "Public health
is purchasable. Within natural limits, any society can determine its own death rate."
Biggs would no doubt be dismayed to see how few lessons have been learned a century later.
Public health officials knew more than a decade ago that almost half of Toronto's homeless
population was infected with latent TB.
City officials have known for at least as long the public health risks associated with their policy
of cramming homeless people into an overcrowded shelter system and forcing them to constantly
move from place to place.
Toronto officials gambled on that risk, and now the pound of cure is proving very expensive,
indeed.
The 2001 shelter TB outbreak cost Toronto Public Health more than $500,000. It cost three
homeless men their lives. Last week, another homeless man died of TB in Toronto. The current
case-finding strategy has pulled public health staff from many other departments and the financial
costs are as yet uncalculated.
And so now, if I am homeless in Canada's largest city, these are my choices: Try to sleep outside,
where I face rain, snow, disrupted sleep, violence, frostbite, hypothermia and police harassment.
Or, try to get into a shelter where I face noise, crowding, disrupted sleep, violence, influenza,
tuberculosis, and bedbugs.
Or, try to get a mat on the floor of a church basement where I face noise, poor air quality, even
more crowding, disrupted sleep, influenza, tuberculosis, the burden of carrying all my possessions
with me wherever I go, and the exhaustion that accompanies travelling from place to place every
night. A Hobson's choice if ever there was one.
Perhaps I will be among the 40 per cent of unlucky homeless people who contract latent TB
infection. If I am even unluckier and develop active TB, how long before I am diagnosed? How
will my movements or my contacts be traced?
The lessons repeat, over and over, and always the price climbs. But never, apparently, is it ever
cheap enough, cost-efficient enough, timely enough or anything enough, to just offer people
housing they can afford and let them live there — sleeping in their own beds, within their own
walls, breathing their own air, looking after their health.
Even with a record-setting financial surplus, the federal government balks at spending money on
a national housing program. Even after signing an agreement to spend $366 million on affordable
housing, and promising 35,000 new rent supplements, the Ontario government drags its feet.
What if SARS had entered Toronto's shelter system? Where would you quarantine homeless
people? Has anyone got a plan for that?
During the 1918 flu pandemic, Toronto city officials shut down theatres and all congregate
facilities, in order to try to stop the spread of the virus. Now, we have about 5,000 weakened,
stressed-out men, women and children crowded into more than 60 shelters.
In an epidemic, where will these people go? In a pandemic, where will they go? Does anyone
have a plan?
Sadly, little has changed since Hermann Biggs' time, except that now we have microbes that are
drug-resistant, and a bigger population.
How ironic it will be if the refusal of governments to improve social conditions ends up fuelling a
cataclysmic pandemic that will change society forever.
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Kathy Hardill is a Toronto street nurse who has worked with the homeless for 16 years.
New Year’s Resolutions…
Renew membership in the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force OR
JOIN the Toronto Harm Reduction Task Force
Update mailing lists (Holly!)
MEMBERSHIP
Renew your membership/join now…It’s FREE! Don’t miss out on any of the FREE,
informative Harm Reduction events, workshops and networking opportunities offered by
the THRTF, as well as quarterly e-newsletters. You can join or renew your individual or
agency membership, which allows you to vote at Annual General Meetings; simply
”cut and paste” the following form, fill in the blanks and email to:
harmreductionmember@yahoo.ca stating “membership” in the subject line
(you may also print and even photocopy this and mail completed form(s) to:
THRTF, 100 Lombard St., Ste. 205, Toronto, M5C 1M3 or fax to 416-364-7815)
* = required
THRTF 2005-6 Membership Registration:
*Name (individual or agency):
*Is this a new membership registration?
*City, Province/State, Country:
Email address:
Mailing address (don‟t forget postal code!)
Telephone number:
Are there any particular harm reduction related topics or issues you‟d like the THRTF to
address at upcoming workshops or seminars?
Do you want to receive regular (up to three times/month) e-mailings from the THRTF?
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Thank you for your (continued) support…and for helping keep our membership and
mailing lists current!
Erratum
In the last issue of the THRTF Newsletter we printed an incorrect address for Toronto’s Drug
Strategy Project; the correct address is:
http://www.toronto.ca/health/toronto_drugstrategy.htm
We apologize for any inconvenience this mistake may have caused.
From the Globe & Mail: Facts & Arguments, 2/12/04
The fourth drive?
Humans have a strong biological drive to seek intoxication, contends Ronald Siegel, a
psychopharmacologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It's the fourth drive," he told
the New Scientist. "After hunger, thirst and sex, there is intoxication." Whether we are seeking
pleasure, stimulation, pain relief or escape, at the root of this drive, he says, is the motivation to
feel "different from normal" -- what has sometimes been called "a holiday from reality." Some
people achieve this state through travel, books, art, roller coasters, sport, religion, exploration,
love, social contact or power. Others use intoxicants. "It's the same motivation," he says. "We
wouldn't live if we didn't seek to feel different."
Swinging at the Shadows: the curse of crystal meth
Graeme Smith: The Globe & Mail, 4/12/04
Rain, saliva and tears soaked the pistol in Mike Lund's mouth. He stood alone in a field
near a baseball diamond in Regina, tasting the metal tip of the black .22-calibre Walther. In
that suicidal moment, he didn't think about the power of crystal methamphetamine. He
could hardly remember his former life as a store manager who negotiated wholesale deals
across North America. He didn't understand how meth had reduced him to an addict, a
petty criminal, a small-time drug dealer.
Now, seven months later, under house arrest, the 24-year-old stitches together the
memories from his two years on meth: the gang members who threatened to kill
him; the junkie who tried to cut off his own toe; the friend who prowled a rooftop in
a dressing gown, swinging a meat cleaver at shadows.
Mr. Lund has decided to tell this dark story, first to The Globe and Mail and then to
anybody who will hear his warning. He's worried about other people like him, he
says, about the otherwise ordinary lives shattered by meth's arrival in places that
haven't seen such a powerful new drug in decades.
‖Right now, at this very moment, two Grade 10 girls are smoking meth for the very
first time at a house over there,‖ he said, gesturing down a street lined with mature
trees. ‖These girls are coming out of nice, peach-coloured homes...They have
these beautiful homes and families who love them very much, they have brothers
and sisters, they drive nice cars, and they're probably going to be whoring
themselves on the corner so they can smoke meth, four months from now.‖
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That's the heart of the fear about crystal meth. The drug is already rampant among
young B.C. street people. What alarms police, doctors, professors and others who
study methamphetamines, however, is the way crystal meth has spread across
Canada in the past few years.
It's a toxic wave moving from west to east, they say. A dose of the white crystals
often costs less than a pack of cigarettes, it's more addictive than crack cocaine,
and it's more likely to cause psychosis than any other drug on the street.
The awful potential of meth has already been unleashed in the United States,
where the wave started in California and crashed into the Midwest, plaguing small
towns and making the word methamphetamine more common than the words
marijuana or cocaine in U.S. courtrooms.
Meth hasn't hit Canada so hard, but the emerging patterns are similar.
Jennifer Vornbrock, a manager at Vancouver Coastal Health, chaired meetings of
meth experts last month and discovered that the scourge among her city's young
street people has become a problem for middle-class neighbourhoods across the
country.‖It's getting into suburbia and small rural towns that aren't used to dealing
with a substance of this magnitude,‖ she said. Two years ago, almost nobody in
Regina had heard of crystal meth. Mike Lund certainly had no idea what the stuff
looked like.
He was raised in a comfortable house with his mother and brother, earned good
grades in school, played violin with a junior symphony, took up classical guitar, and
won trophies in hockey, basketball and baseball. His strongest talent emerged at
age 17, when the long-haired teenager took a part-time job at a store that sells
bath products. The young man rose quickly from clerk to manager. He cut his hair
short and was featured in a local newspaper as a promising entrepreneur.
Introducing the store's handmade soaps and bath bombs to the wholesale and
export markets, he negotiated deals with clients in California, Nevada, New York
and across Canada.
His first encounter with meth happened on a warm evening in June, 2002. He was
finishing his day at the soap store and feeling tired because he had recently started
a second job at an auto garage. A regular customer invited him to his apartment a
few blocks away. He had never visited this guy before, but he was impressed when
he climbed the stairs and opened a door into a pristine room with cream-coloured
carpets, suspended halogen lights, spare furniture and a glass coffee table. His
new friend welcomed him, pulled out a small bottle and shook a white rock onto the
table. He said it would ease Mr. Lund's fatigue.
The rock was chopped into powder, and he snorted a line through a glass tube.
‖This stuff burns, unlike any other drug. It feels like your brain is going to explode,
like it just hurts very badly. I'm sitting there, I've got tears streaming down my face,
and I'm looking at him going, ‗Why did you make me do this?' Two seconds after
the pain, though....‖ He snapped his fingers.
‖Ting! Your brain goes Atten-SHUN! Like boom, all right! You're talking a mile a
minute, you can't get enough air into your lungs to say all the words you want to
say.‖
The high lasted all night and into the next morning, leaving him sleepless but alert.
15
He started taking the drug almost every day. The street phrase for turning people
into meth addicts is ‖making monsters,‖ he says, and that's what happened to him.
”I ceased being a human being and became a monster.”
Not everybody gets hooked on meth so quickly, and some users can manage the
cravings. But law-enforcement officials say Mr. Lund's intense reaction to his first
sample was typical. ‖There is no recreational use of meth,‖ said Douglas Culver,
national co-ordinator of RCMP synthetic drug operations. ‖You can't just use it
occasionally. It's like a disease.‖
The N-methyl derivative of amphetamine works like other stimulants such as
cocaine, except the euphoria can last eight to 12 hours. Some experts say its
addictiveness is pure chemistry, but others point to the lure of heightened alertness
in a fast-paced society. Club-goers can play all night, while truckers, taxi drivers,
prostitutes and students can work longer hours.
‖Unlike other drugs, crystal meth has spanned across all kinds of demographics,‖
said Caitlin Padgett, co-ordinator of an outreach group for meth users in
Vancouver. ‖There's just a seductiveness to not sleeping.‖
Although national statistics are scarce, the number of Canadians succumbing to
the seduction seems to be growing. Data from Health Canada's Drug Analysis
Service, which tests the drugs seized by police across the country, show the
number of meth samples from British Columbia increased 50 per cent between
2001 and 2003; Alberta rose 20 per cent; Ontario 108 per cent; Manitoba 141 per
cent; Quebec 457 per cent; and Saskatchewan 857 per cent.
‖It's being seized on a regular basis now,‖ said Corporal Kevin Lamontagne of the
Manitoba RCMP drug section.
The RCMP responded to the growing threat this year by assigning 26 officers to
search for clandestine meth laboratories, full time. Police on the Prairies say
they're particularly worried because of meth's low price, the easy availability of
farm fertilizer used as an ingredient and meth's nickname among their colleagues
in the United States: prairie wildfire.
Warnings are showing up in Prairie towns such as Prince Albert, Sask., which has
a population of 40,000 and about 140 meth addicts in counselling.
Those numbers are still comparatively low, however. Police didn't uncover any
meth labs in Saskatchewan last year. During the same period south of the border,
police in Missouri raided 2,858 laboratories.
Similar statistics flashed on-screen at the Western Summit on Methamphetamine
in Vancouver last month, and the figures puzzled the international group of
experts. The numbers have increased sharply, but the drug still isn't common in
Canada. Why has this substance gained a reputation as a serious threat?
‖The drug debate is always plagued by one moral panic or another,‖ notes
Cameron Duff, director of the Australian Drug Foundation's Centre for Youth Drug
Studies and a keynote speaker at the conference. ‖Perhaps at the moment crystal
meth is the drug generating that anxiety, and it might be somewhat out of
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proportion to the actual reality of the problem.‖
Mr. Duff paused for thought.
”But with crystal meth, it does seem to be associated with more
problems, more frequently, than any other drug….If you look at all the
problems associated with this drug, you think, well, maybe your
priority should be on the drug that causes the most harm, irrespective
of the number of users.”
The nasty side of meth emerged several months after Mr. Lund's first taste. His
dealer became his best friend, and they travelled to Calgary together to buy drugs.
During his first long stretch of sleepless days, he found himself hallucinating while
driving along the Trans-Canada Highway. He saw dragons, old women and
children, and kept screeching to a stop from 130 kilometres an hour because he
thought he had hit them. Later he blacked out and woke up, still driving, on an
unmarked dirt road with the gas gauge inching lower. The motor sputtered to a
stop just as he was coasting into a town with a gas station.
The meth dealer moved into Mr. Lund's house that fall, and started losing his mind.
Mr. Lund noticed him standing in front of a bathroom mirror with blood dripping off
his face as he gouged imaginary blemishes with a metal pick. Then Mr. Lund found
videotapes of the dealer using drugs to rape women in Mr. Lund's bed. He
smashed the tapes, kicked him out of the house — and became a dealer himself.
‖I'd met with all his connections, and I said, ‗You're done.'‖ Economics is the
backbone of meth's popularity. Mr. Lund sold the drug in Regina for about $140 a
gram, or $14 a dose. Desperation sometimes raised the price — somebody gave
him a rusted 1982 Nissan for two grams, and another addict traded his 1980
Chevy van for 1.5 grams — but it was usually cheap. Studies have found street
values as low as $4 or $5 a dose elsewhere in Canada.
Supply drives prices down. Amateurs make the drug with recipes from the Internet,
ingredients from the local pharmacy and hardware store, and a healthy dose of
courage for mixing volatile chemicals.
RCMP figures show the number of meth-cooking operations discovered by police
has grown in Canada, from fewer than 10 in 1998 to 39 last year. U.S. busts during
the same years were far more dramatic, rising from 1,627 labs to 9,763 last year
The sheer number of meth cooks south of the border has forced many states to
pass cleanup laws requiring decontamination of homes before they're suitable for
living.
Technicians such as Dan Hannan, of Assured Decontamination in Minnesota,
climb into protective suits with breathing masks and mop up the puddles of
solvents. The usual meth factory is a roach-infested home with an overflowing cat-
litter box, he says, but his crews have also been called to motels, mobile homes,
outhouses, tree-houses and even an ice-fishing hut. Understandably, Mr. Lund
doesn't talk about the criminal organization that supplied his drugs. But he laughs
when asked about his T-shirt emblazoned with the Big Red Machine logo, a
trademark of the Hells Angels. He wants to get something printed on the back, he
says, such as, ‖I screwed up my life for a criminal organization and all I got was a
lousy T-shirt.‖
17
In fact, ‖screwed up‖ hardly begins to describe Mr. Lund's short career as a drug
dealer. He once saw an addict offer to settle a debt by cutting off his own baby toe
with a serrated kitchen knife. The man started sawing but only got halfway through
the tough sinews, so somebody else had to finish the job.
Mr. Lund says he was never so cruel. He remains proud of the fact that he never
introduced anybody to the drug, even though he jokes about his own depiction of
himself as the ‖Mother Teresa of the meth world.‖
He once visited an addict's house and found him in a psychotic state, smashing
telephones. The crazed man rushed outside and ripped wires out of Mr. Lund's
car, explaining that listening devices were everywhere. Mr. Lund walked to a
drugstore, bought sleeping pills, slipped them into the addict's drink and helped the
man's girlfriend get him into bed.
Shortly afterward, he visited another friend and found him on the roof wearing a
dressing gown and wielding a meat cleaver, shouting that he had cornered the
‖shadow people.‖ Mr. Lund persuaded him to climb down.
It wasn't so easy dealing with the dealers, especially when meth made them
paranoid. One dealer secretly stashed $14,000 in an air vent in the basement of
Mr. Lund's rented house, forgot about it, and stole Mr. Lund's car on the
assumption that he had taken the cash.
Another dealer put a gun to his head during an argument about drugs, and that's
when Mr. Lund started carrying weapons himself. He was still selling perfumed
bath products during the day, but his addiction was spilling into the rest of his life.
One day in March, two thugs parked a van outside the soap shop and cranked
their stereo so loud the display windows rattled. One of them confronted him in the
store about a drug debt, shoved him around, threatened his life and stole some
beauty products.
Mr. Lund took the threat seriously. ‖Somewhere along the way I'd pissed
somebody off. So I left my store and I never came back.‖
Without saying goodbye to anyone, he started camping in the basement of a house
belonging to his girlfriend's mother. His family reported him missing and he saw his
own photo on the evening news, but he was too afraid to go home.
It got worse. His girlfriend cheated on him, he started laundering money and police
finally caught him with drugs, counterfeit cash and a sawed-off shotgun in his car.
Shortly after his release from police custody he found himself standing in a park
one rainy day, after spending four days awake on meth, fingering the trigger of a
snub-nosed Walther he had traded for $10 worth of drugs. He was utterly
transformed, from a clean-cut entrepreneur into a street tough who wore a leather
skullcap, studded leather cuffs, and a bracelet of bullets on his wrist. And he was
thinking about how a bullet would feel in the roof of his mouth.
‖I just snapped,‖ he said. The list of health effects from prolonged use of crystal
meth is long and ugly, as with most other narcotics. What makes meth unique,
researchers say, is how often the drug drives people insane. Users get violent and
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paranoid. They tend to stay awake for days, binging on the drug, which can lead to
psychosis. Richard Rawson, a psychologist at the University of California who has
studied drug addiction for 30 years, said researchers don't fully understand why.
”People get crazy on meth like they don't on other drugs,” he said.
At the brink, Mr. Lund pulled back. He threw the gun in a creek and went to bed for
two days. It was the most dangerous moment of his struggle with meth, even
though it would be months before he escaped its clutches. He was arrested again
in June, released on bail, and arrested again in September. This time he wasn't
released and spent a month at a remand centre. He wept for days as he lived
without drugs for the first time in two years.The withdrawal symptoms weren't as
awful as the full realization of what had happened, he said. ‖Going to jail, that was
it, that was rock bottom. And then sobering up and going, ‗Holy fuck, I need help.'‖
Mr. Lund pleaded guilty to what proved to be Regina's first case of crystal meth
drug trafficking, as well as to charges of weapons offences and using counterfeit
currency. The judge sentenced him to 18 months house arrest with an electronic
ankle bracelet tracking his movements.
When he got home, his mother, Wendy Winter, 51, showed him a sketchbook of
watercolours she did to express her frustration about his addiction. The sketches
formed an alphabet series, with captions such as: ‖W is for weeping,‖ ‖and
wondering.‖ Ms. Winter still wonders about her son. ‖I can't say I'm 100 per cent
sure he's out of the woods,‖ she said.
When asked whether he still craves meth, Mr. Lund took a long drag on his
cigarette and stubbed it out. He exhaled, and stared through the smoke with his
blue eyes. ‖Every day,‖ he said, quietly. ‖Every day.‖ But he wants to rebuild his
life. He spends most days back at his old job in the soap store and several nights a
week at Narcotics Anonymous. He has started playing guitar again and he's been
sober for more than two months.
How many more Canadians will be transformed this way? Some experts say meth
isn't any worse than the heroin and cocaine that swept across the country in recent
decades. Others believe meth will burn through Canada unlike any other drug.Mr.
Lund says there's no time for debate. ‖It has to stop,‖ he said. ‖These monsters are
being created at such high velocity that you can't contain this fire. If you try to
contain it, it's going to blow up in your face. You need to extinguish it right now.‖