BY KEITH LACEY
The power of crack cocaine addiction is so strong, some Greater Sudbury clients who are HIV positive can’t find the strength to quit.
Vicki Kett, manager of community services for Sudbury’s Access AIDS, said her organization has seen an increase in the number of clients who have become caught up in the lurid world of crack cocaine addiction over the past 18 months.
“We obviously watch the level of all hard drugs on the street, be it prescription drugs or things like heroin and cocaine...and I can tell you crack cocaine has become a bigger and bigger problem over the past year and a half or so,” she said. “That’s obviously troublesome for our organization as our mandate is to prevent the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.
“Addicts to hard drugs like cocaine and crack cocaine tend to not practise safe sex, and this is very problematic as there has been an increase in sexually transmitted diseases among this population.”
Because crack cocaine is so powerful, addicts lose respect for themselves and others and tend to enter into high-risk behaviour, which often has very serious health consequences, said Kett.
“It’s a drug that takes over a person’s life...it’s all they think about every passing minute of the day,” she said. “Many crack addicts no longer care about their health and of course we know many women resort to prostitution to get the money to feed their habit.”
Outreach workers who volunteer for Access AIDS agree the problem with crack cocaine has escalated from the outskirts to a mainstream problem within two years, said Kett.
“We heard rumblings about this stuff infiltrating our community within the past 18 months, and we certainly know there are many more addicts out there now,” she said.
“We learn a lot from our clientele as well, and they’ve informed us how serious a problem crack cocaine is becoming.”
Kett said it breaks her heart to see a client who is HIV positive unwilling or unable to quit smoking crack even when they are in such poor health.
“I see clients all the time who I know don’t want to be turning tricks, but they just don’t have the power to quit this drug,” she said. “It really is heartbreaking.
“It’s like a ball that keeps spinning and spinning and eventually their life is totally out of control...they’re already very sick and this drug just makes them sicker.”
National studies show the number of crack addicts across Canada is growing for the first time in 15 years, and more and more young people are trying the drug and getting hooked, said Kett.
This is sure to cause serious societal and health care problems down the road.
Why so many young people would even consider wanting to experiment with such a potentially destructive drug is worrisome, said Kett.
“It’s wonderful to sit back and say we live in this wonderful isolated part of Northern Ontario and say this problem doesn’t exist here, but it does,” said Kett.
“It all starts inside individual homes...some parents just might have to sit back and perhaps re-evaluate if their regular drinking might be having some effects on the decisions their children are making.”
Kett said she believes a multi-layered approach involving awareness, education, rehabilitiation and enforcement is needed to reduce the problem.
“It’s going to take a community effort to address the serious problems of drug addiction not only in Greater Sudbury, but all across the country,” she said. “There are no easy solutions.”
