REHAB FACILITIES NEEDED NOW MORE THAN EVER By: Chuck Doucette and David Berner Opinion in the Winnipeg Free Press June 15, 2016

RCMP at the Behavioral Health Foundation in late May.

Thanks to Jessica Hadley, President of the Child & Youth Care Workers’ Association of Manitoba for her excellent, timely and well-balanced commentary (Fear, frustration the norm for youth-care workers, June 7).

Ms. Hadley was writing about the May 29 attack on two workers — including a Red River College student finishing her practicum — committed by two teenage residents at the Behavioural Health Foundation’s facility in Selkirk.

The workers were viciously assaulted with a baseball bat and billiard balls and suffered serious injuries — the student is now blind in one eye — and trauma. The purpose of this obscenity, it’s believed, was to steal a truck and go party.

Over the years, BHF staff have been threatened and assaulted and there have been attempts to burn down the facility.Residents assault each other in every way imaginable and, in some cases, quite unimaginable ways.

But this is the most extreme and dreadful incident in BHF’s 45 years operating in Manitoba.

The male youth facility — which had been scheduled to close for good on June 25 — typically housed between 10 and 14 high-risk youths. Staff were scheduled at a ratio of one to four youths, except on overnight shifts, which met the licensing and accreditation standards. Many group homes have staff with considerably less.

The residents are volatile youths who come from families torn apart by generations of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, criminality and scant regard for what most people would consider basic human values.

For reasons unclear to anyone at this point, there has been a steadily increasing unwillingness to continue funding and sending at-risk youths to this wonderful program. In 2014, the BHF in Selkirk was told it was going to be shut down because of funding. In fact, the only reason why the facility remained open was so that the Red River College student could get the practicum hours needed in order to obtain her diploma.

To be clear, this kind of violent behaviour is rarely seen in a large group setting, normally the situation at this facility, where they would be surrounded by a peer group of 10 or12 others and a full complement of staff. Because of funding cuts, these two very wound-up boys and their dark histories of violence, addictions and social instabilities were only residents left.

What was BHF supposed to do, throw them out on the street? This is the work BHF has done so well for so many years with singular dedication and knowledge.

And BHF is not alone. Courageous programs across the country dare to bring youths such as this pair into their facilities and dare to embrace them and lead them into a new way of looking at the world. Acceptance, camaraderie and new concepts are thrown at these kids. "Do unto others" or "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." or "Be the Best You!" Young people who have little or no experience with being loved, or even vaguely liked, will present walls and barricades. They are suspicious of good vibes or "square" values. Their lives have been lived in chaos and it is chaos to which they naturally drift. Now they’re being asked to live with peace, reasonableness, kindness and caring for other people. Really?

One of the oldest and best youth programs in the country introduced in a rural setting in British Columbia a few years ago. Ribbons were cut, photos were taken, the funding established and then the local health authorities and the provincial government of the day did everything in their power to stymie the work.

Let’s say a 17-year-old girl says one morning, "Dad, I want to get clean." What’s the window of opportunity? About five seconds.

Reason says that father and daughter get in the car and head for the facility. But health authorities decided that the person in crisis has to be interviewed — several times — in Vancouver before she could even be considered for admission to the rural program. As if these bureaucrats have the faintest notion of how to work with kids in that situation.

This recent event at BHF is awful. But understand that those working on the front lines with volatile people begin with a foundation of trust, love and camaraderie tempered by some serious street smarts.
Today, Behavioural Health Foundation’s main facility in St. Norbert houses some 100 men, women and children, runs school programs, a daycare and myriad other activities, including sophisticated and accredited therapy and counseling.

It has been doing this successfully for more than four decades.

As conscious and conscientious citizens, we need not look far to realize we need BHF now more than ever.

Let us recognize the tragedy for what it is and not make the mistake of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Chuck Doucette is the president and David Berner is the executive director of Drug Prevention Network Canada.

METHADONE is a con job - an unholy alliance between addicts and doctors. For the addicts, it means no need to change; for the doctors it mean serious change in the bank account.

How to cure 42,000 addicts quickly

By Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, Special to Postmedia Network

First posted: Saturday, June 04, 2016 08:00 AM EDT 

 

How could this medical and social disaster ever be allowed to happen? If authorities had told me that Ontario, just one Canadian province, was treating 400 addicts in methadone clinics, I’d believe them. But, the actual number is 42,000. But how many of these addicts need methadone? And what is the solution for this madness?

Dr. Theodore Dalrymple is not an arm-chair commentator on addiction. Rather, he’s an internationally renowned expert, a British psychiatrist, and prison doctor who has treated thousands of addicts over years.

In his book, Romancing Opiates, he writes that heroin is not as highly addictive as claimed, and withdrawal not as difficult as treating an alcoholic. He claims, “It’s a myth that treating the heroin addiction 'cold turkey' causes withdrawal symptoms that are virtually unbearable.”

He adds that, after witnessing withdrawal symptoms in thousands of patients, “they are hardly worse than the flu. Moreover, the sudden withdrawal of heroin is not dangerous.”

To prove his point Dalrymple reports that researchers examined the records of thousands of addicts between 1875 and 1968 who had been taken off heroin. They did not find a single death from withdrawal symptoms.

Dalrymple makes another poignant observation. He has observed addicts laughing and having a great time in his waiting room. But once inside his consulting office they acted as if they’re “in extremis.” And when he points out this abrupt change in health, they have admitted they were “blagging.”

He cites another experiment that shows how addiction is largely a myth. Morphine addicts, who believed they were being given morphine, but had only received water, reported their withdrawal symptoms had disappeared!

Dalrymple claims that the use of methadone has had a low success rate. The result is that addicts end up being treated indefinitely with medication at great cost to society. And he says doctors have a long history of treating trivial conditions dangerously with drugs such as methadone.

This prison expert says there is nothing an addict likes more than to continue his personal way of life and place the weight of responsibility for his situation somewhere other than on his own decisions.
So Dalrymple contends that a useless medical bureaucracy has been established to deal with addicts. After all, why would doctors and staff want this merry-go-round to end when it’s become financially lucrative? In effect, he says, doctors and administrators need the addicts more than the addicts need them!

I couldn’t agree more that North America has followed an asinine approach to heroin addiction that’s causing major public health problems for this country. Years ago, I interviewed Singapore authorities about how they had attacked the illegal use of drugs.

They accused North Americans of being “irresponsibly permissive.” This message was dispensed on my flight even before landing. A handout card to passengers read, “Death to drug dealers.”

Singapore authorities told me that the illegal use of heroin had been rampart in the country, and destroying young lives. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew decided to stop this trend. He realized you should never show your teeth unless you’re prepared to bite.

Criminals quickly got his message when drug dealers were hanged.

I recently read that Alberta has a rat patrol and has been rat-free for 65 years. The Albertan policy is to take no prisoners. What a shame North America doesn’t use the same approach for humans. I’m referring to human rats that pedal illegal drugs which trigger health problems, misery and crime at a huge cost to society.

Congratulations to Dr. Dalrymple his research. So I believe he would agree that the majority of addicts would be quickly cured by sending them to northern Canada to chop wood. They would be happy to return south without the methadone. As Aristotle remarked two thousand years ago, “punishment is a form of medicine.”

I’m sure this column will be criticized by do-gooders that it’s a mortal sin to to deny methadone to addicts. But I believe health care dollars could be better utilized.