Police chief, community organizers call for sweeping plan to fight drug

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This article was published 27/09/2018 (2581 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NORTH Point Douglas residents hosted a “meth info session” Wednesday for residents, business and agencies looking for ways to respond to Winnipeg’s meth crisis. The rise in property and violent crime stoked by the drug has taken over mayoral debates and news headlines in a city that’s feeling overwhelmed.

Police Chief Danny Smyth told close to 100 people gathered at Gonzaga School that when he became chief nearly two years ago, he was asked what kept him awake at night. “I answered ‘meth.’ And, frankly, it still does,” he said. “We are a city in crisis. If you look around, you see evidence of meth and meth use all around us and in all corners of the city, not just this neighbourhood.”

The drug is just $10 a hit, said Smyth, and more people are trying it and getting hooked.

Gangs are selling it and fighting for control of the market, resulting in violence, said Smyth, who figures eight of 35 homicides last year were meth or gang-related. Liquor stolen from stores is being sold to pay for meth. Home invasions are happening to pay for meth. Discarded needles are a safety hazard.

“It’s a community problem,” Smyth told the crowd. “It’s not a problem the police can solve on its own or that the community can solve on its own,” the chief said.

“We need the Department of Education to really get involved,” said Smyth, who wants to see age-appropriate information in the Manitoba curriculum to educate students on the perils of experimenting with the highly addictive substance. Once a person gets hooked, addiction should be seen and treated as a health issue, he said. “We need more treatment facilities.” Smyth said. Not treating people comes with a price: a 78 per cent spike in property crimes in Winnipeg in the first six months of this year is mainly the result of meth addicts looking for something to steal and sell to feed their habit, he said.

“The last thing I want to see is people getting caught up in the criminal justice system. We want to help them beat their addiction.”

So does Aboriginal Youth Opportunities (AYO), the organization that runs Meet Me at the Bell Tower Friday evenings on Selkirk Avenue in a neighbourhood that’s seen an 18 per cent decrease in violent crime since the gatherings began nearly a decade ago.

“Young people are banding together and helping our peers get off crystal meth,” said AYO organizer Jenna Licious Wirch. The idea is to form a positive, healthy gang for young people who often feel isolated and rejected and even more so if they’re battling addictions. Wirch, who is in recovery, has helped set up a 13 Moons program that she described as an “Indigenized” version of a 12-step recovery program. And, starting Saturday night at The Merch — the former Merchants Hotel that’s been transformed into classrooms and housing — AYO will host monthly gatherings for older youth with culture and music.

“There is hope,” she said. “That’s what we bring to the table,” said Wirch. She’s conducting a survey in the community to find out if people feel a safe injection site is needed.

More meth users are injecting the drug and used needles are turning up in neighbourhoods, said Tara Zajac, who helped organize Wednesday’s meeting. “We’ve gone out to rooming houses with proper equipment for picking up needles and we’ve supplied sharps containers to other community groups.

Zajac, the executive director of the North Point Douglas Women’s Centre and a North End resident, said someone high on meth and threatening staff with a used needle forced the centre to go into lockdown the other days. “We had to get people out the back door,” she said. “For the first time at work, I was scared and worried,” said Zajac who has worked there for seven years. She’s seeing more people getting addicted to meth, more people becoming homeless and more parents losing their kids to Child and Family Services. “People are lost, and meth has a hold on them,” she said.

“It’s going to take all of us working together and it’s affecting everybody all across Winnipeg,” she said. “Things do need to change. Hopefully, the province, the city and the federal government will come together to make more treatment centres,” said Zajac.

What’s lacking is organizations and groups working with residents to deal with the problem, said Sel Burrows with the North Point Douglas Residents Committee. In Point Douglas, they’ve had some success, he said.

“There were three bike chop shops that were described as meth rec centres,” said Burrows. Stolen bicycles were taken to the locations in the neigbourhood in exchange for meth. “You bring in two bikes, you get two hits of meth.” With the help of police, neighbours and landlords, they were able to shut down the chop shops, said Burrows.

He blames the province and the city for not developing a strategy to address the meth crisis and its underlying causes.

“I see the damage it’s doing to people and it makes me sick,” Burrows said.

“Please don’t give up hope,” said Tahl East, with the Main Street Project that just announced it has bought the former Mitchell Fabrics building nearby.

“We need to inspire that hope,” said East.

“Nobody chooses addiction,” she told the gathering, noting that 70 to 80 per cent of the women in detox are meth addicts and 50 per cent of men say meth is their drug of choice.

People from all backgrounds and income levels are getting hooked. “It looks like a blond girl, a person from Africa, a person from China. The pain that it causes is the same across the board.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca