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News Release: New Residential Treatment Centre for Youth
September 7, 2007
For Immediate Release
VANCOUVER – British Columbia youth challenged by addiction will soon be able to receive long-term residential care at a new treatment centre near Keremeos, about 55 km southwest of Penticton.
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New drug-treatment centre offers ray of hope for B.C. addicts
Vancouver, B.C., September 9, 2007
Last week, 18-year-old Lauren Gill described her terrible ordeal as a teenager in Vancouver, hooked on a life of drugs and crime: "I was like a bird with no wings."
Gill was telling her story at the public announcement of a long-term residential centre for young people suffering from serious addictions. It will be the first of its kind in this province.
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Treatment centre planned for Keremeos
By Tracy Clark, Western News Staff
Sep 09 2007
A new residential treatment centre opening in the Keremeos area is good news say those impacted by the project.
“At present I am struggling to find any negatives,” said Joe Nitsch, regional director for rural Keremeos, where the 42-bed centre known as The Crossing will be located.
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Wilderness centre for addicted youth launched
By Andy Ivens
Friday, September 07, 2007
In her darkest hour, drug-addicted Lauren Gill contemplated an end to her miserable life, unable to see a future without her chemical crutch and the petty crimes she committed to survive.
"I was like a bird with no wings," she told a packed press conference in a youth drop-in centre on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside yesterday.
"My life was a mess. I had absolutely no direction whatsoever. I was worn out and I was ready to give up," she recalled. She was 16 years old at the time.
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New treatment centre to offer help for teen drug addicts
Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun
Friday, September 07, 2007
Drug-addicted teens from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and other areas of the Lower Mainland will soon be able to seek long-term treatment in a new facility in Keremeos.
Health officials on Thursday unveiled B.C.'s first residential treatment centre for 42 people, aged 14-24, which is set to open next fall. Other facilities are already operating in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.
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Crystal Meth: A Parent's Story 
By Tia Abell, The Richmond Review, Staff Reporter
Pat Johnson’s son struggled with an addiction to crystal meth. The former Richmond resident describes her family’s experiences for The Richmond Review’s readers:
“Five years ago my husband and I were not only naïve about the availability of drugs; we couldn’t even recognize our own son’s addiction.
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Watching the Life Drain from their Eyes
By Tia Abell, The Richmond Review, Staff Reporter
Good kids from happy homes can get addicted to crystal meth—that’s a message with a personal twist from former Richmond resident Pat Johnson. “I’m a mom of a crystal meth addict,” she said, her voice shaking, at the provincial government’s crystal meth forum at the Richmond Inn Wednesday.“I want everyone to know addiction knows no boundaries, it could happen in anyone’s family.”
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Addicted to Red Tape
By David Berner, The Tyee, writer, actor, radio talk show host
A parents group called "From Grief to Action" has cried out publicly for several years now that there are no facilities for their addicted children. The home base of this group is Kerrisdale. For those who can afford it, the children are often sent to centres in America.
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Media Fueled Hysteria 
By Dan Reist, Centre for Addictions Research and FGTA Director
With the hurricane-like fury of methamphetamine fear flying around in the media, you have to wonder who's actually having the "psychotic episode"-the drug users or the rest of us.
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Sticks and Stones, Policies and Words
By Sarah Hamid-Belma, CMHA and Corrine Arthur, FGTA
In many human rights circles, the last 50 years have been an era of increasing (albeit imperfect) tolerance. Those of us working in the fields of mental health and addictions have seen change - from mysticizing, warehousing and criminalizing to medicalizing and psychologizing.
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Group pushes province for funding
By Mike Howell, Staff writer
The Vancouver Courier - March 16, 2005
A Vancouver coalition of advocates for drug treatment is negotiating with regional health authorities to open treatment centres in Langley and Keremeos for up to 80 young addicts.
Annis' non-profit organization is working with Central City Mission Foundation in the Downtown Eastside and From Grief To Action, a West Side-based support group for parents and friends of addicts.
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Pied-piper of vagrants lacks answers
By Corrine Arthur
Maple Ridge Times - October 15, 2004
Re: Addicts have no respect for others, TIMES Mailbag, Oct, 8, 2004.
Please everyone, step aside - Harry Battle (how appropriately named) may have a few more derogatory labels to spew forth from his self-righteous lips.
Mr. Battle in all his eloquence has managed to twist together a series of unrelated current events and fault our addicted populace, our young offenders, a group of benevolent volunteers and even ourselves in his latest tirade of intolerance. But he does not do so without authority, heavens no. He the great pied-piper of the vagrants gave up his sinful compulsions and has since been appointed judge, jury and, if it were legal in Canada, likely executioner.
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Drugs also a West Side story
By Naoibh O'Connor, Staff writer
The Vancouver Courier - August 05, 2004
Susie Ruttan discovered her 15-year-old son was addicted to heroin when she found drugs in his bedroom. Figuring out how to deal with the addiction proved to be a lot harder.
Treatment options were scarce and informative resources few. It's one of the reasons she and other West Side parents launched the support group From Grief to Action several years ago. They want drug use recognized as a health issue, and use their resources to support and educate other parents so they can better cope.
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Shelters already overflowing
By Kevin Perley, Contributing writer
The Vancouver Courier - August 05, 2004
Some homeless shelters filled to bursting by the recent cold snap are sending people to the makeshift tent city at the Woodward's building for emergency shelter, says the executive director of Lookout Emergency Aid Society.
"We have anywhere from 10 to 20 people coming every single day trying to get out of the cold and we're only able to house a few of them because there are no vacancies," said Karen O'Shannacery, a 30-year veteran of the Downtown Eastside shelter. "Everybody else is being sent down to Woodward's. There just aren't enough beds available and at least down there it's a little bit safer, the cops are there overseeing things and people have been generous, coming down and donating food and blankets."
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Time's Up for Helping Teens
By Helena Bryan
The Georgia Straight - May 20, 2004
For the most part, the news about B.C. youth in the latest Adolescent Health Survey was good. Released last month by Burnaby's McCreary Centre Society--a nonprofit educational organization that focuses on young people's well-being--the report acknowledged that although rates of marijuana use and binge drinking among boys were up over the last decade, most teenagers are doing well. In fact, nine out of 10 say they are in good or excellent physical health. Suicide-attempt rates have remained constant, but at least they haven't gone up. Fewer teens are smoking and abusing drugs. Most are waiting until they are older to have sex. And obesity rates are lower than the national average.
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Time for a new approach to heroin addiction, Vancouver says
By Deborah Jones
CMAJ, the leading health sciences journal in Canada - June 24, 2003
When North America's first purpose-built, supervised site for using heroin opened in Vancouver in early February, all that was missing were the addicts.
InSite, near Hastings and Main streets at the gritty centre of the city's Downtown East Side, offers 6 stalls for self-administered injections. Clean needles, spoons, sterile water and lighters are laid on steel counters. A raised nursing station oversees the stalls...
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Q&A: Art and social activism: An Interview with Bud Osborn
By Vicki O'Brien
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) - CrossCurrents, Spring 2003
CrossCurrents
Bud Osborn is a well known West Coast poet, musician and teacher who lives and works in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. A long-time political activist, who once collected 26,000 votes in a run for Vancouver city council, Osborn has been a driving force behind various anti-poverty and harm reduction organizations that today serve residents of Canada's poorest neighbourhood.
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Kerrisdale has its addiction grief
By Ian Mulgrew
The Vancouver Sun -November 09, 2002
Documentary follows four west-side Vancouver families who are grappling with the addiction of loved ones
Rob and Susie Rattan talk about their family planning to celebrate Christmas in prison after their son Gavin was convicted of a robbery he'd committed to feed his drug habit.
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Drug debate moves to West Side
CBC WebPosted - Nov 7, 2002
VANCOUVER - Residents of Kerrisdale grilled the three leading mayoralty candidates on Wednesday night about the city's Four Pillars drug strategy, and the need for safe injection sites.
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First advance polls report heavy turnout Mayoral race, controversial issues behind spike in voter interest, election officers say
Karenn Krangle, Jeff Lee and Dan Rowe, with files from Amy O'Brian
Vancouver Sun - November 07, 2002
Voters turned out in unusually heavy numbers Wednesday at the first advance poll for Vancouver's civic election.
The final tally for the first day of advance polls, held at the Trout Lake, Dunbar and West End community centres, was 1,892. That's more than half of the entire advance turnout in 1999.
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Mayor takes drug war east Owen will ask Ottawa for money to help Downtown Eastside
Peter O'Neil
Vancouver Sun - November 06, 2002
OTTAWA -- Cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and senior political aides will be put through an emotional wringer here Thursday as part of a Vancouver push for as much as $10 million in federal aid to deal with the horrendous drug, social, and health problems in the city's Downtown Eastside.
The federal power-brokers will attend a screening of Fix, Nettie Wild's raw documentary on drug abuse, human despair, and the conflict over how society will deal with one of Canada's most graphic displays of social decay.
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COPE finds the beef, counts its chickens
By Allen Garr
It's no wonder folks were jubilant at Larry's party at the Hyatt Regency Sunday night. COPE's tracking polls show its candidate for mayor is so far ahead, he'll get more votes than his two main rivals combined.
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NDP introduces law to get high-risk kids off the street
Nanaimo Daily News - June 22, 2002
High-risk youth could be kept in custody against their will for up to 30 days under proposed legislation the B.C. government plans to introduce next week.
Parents or authorities will be able to apply to a panel of experts to take teens who are endangering their lives into secure care, under the proposed bill.
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When Heroin Hits Home
By Rebecca Wigod
Vancouver Sun - June 16, 2000
Two couples have responded to their sons' addictions by championing the expansion of prevention, treatment and recovery facilities in B.C. If personal grief brought them to their cause, they brought to it professional abilities and connections.
Leveraging their position as solid, respectable citizens, the Ruttans and Halls have formed a pressure group called From Grief to Action.
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