Amphetamine use up, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba statistics show

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This article was published 13/01/2018 (2896 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

True to what community health advocates have been saying for the past several months, amphetamine use is on the rise in Westman, according to Addictions Foundation of Manitoba intake numbers.

While all other areas of addition have either remained static or decreased during the past few years, amphetamine-related intakes have increased.

Only 1.7 per cent of Brandon and area intakes cited amphetamines as their primary concern in 2014-15 — a figure that has increased every year since that time, to 8.6 per cent as of the latest statistic available (Dec. 10, 2017).

Although opiates have received the bulk of media attention nationally, their use has actually dropped in Westman during the past four years, from 8.1 per cent of intakes to 4.6 per cent as of Dec. 10.

Alcohol remains the top substance preferred by intakes, hovering around 70 per cent for the past few years.

Local mother Danielle Lalonde formed the Westman Families of Addicts support group last year as a means of filling one of many gaps she has noticed in the wake of her son’s methamphetamine addiction.

This organization hosted a community meeting on addictions earlier this week, which Lalonde credits with pushing their efforts forward in a positive direction.

“I feel energetic and that some of my passion has returned,” she said. “I really have no complaints through the evening, but I just wish the conversation surrounded the meth problem a bit more.”

Although the conversation veered more toward opiates, Lalonde said it was nonetheless impactful, and that any public discourse about how to deal with Westman’s addictions problems is positive.

This is why she is particularly enthused by comments that Addictions Foundation of Manitoba officials put forward earlier this week, in which they advocate for longer detox stays and the introduction of safe consumption sites in Manitoba.

“Anything that we’d be doing in Winnipeg we’d look to be doing provincewide,” Addictions Foundation of Manitoba policy analyst and communications co-ordinator Catarina Witt said.

Lalonde said she is “absolutely” in “100 per cent” agreement with these priorities, particularly since Brandon is currently without a detox facility.

Although the AFM hosts a 15-bed unit for 21-day residential treatments, participants are required to undergo detox prior to participating.

Otherwise, participants would feel too sick during their 21 days to accomplish much of anything, Witt said.

Lalonde said she can’t help but wonder whether even more methamphetamine addicts would have pursued 21-day residential treatments if there were a local detox program to help ease them into it.

Witt said the AFM had a member attend the community meeting that Westman Families of Addicts hosted in Brandon earlier this week, and that they’re “just trying to hear what people are saying in terms of what their needs are.”

They’re currently exploring how they might tweak their residential treatment program to better fit the needs of methamphetamine addicts, whose treatments, Witt said, are different from those dealing with other addictions such as alcoholism.

During the 2016-17 operational year, the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba recorded 881 intakes from the Brandon area, which represents approximately 14 per cent of the AFM’s 6,171 intakes across the province.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

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