Why some kids addicted to drugs can’t be forced into care - The Fifth Estate

[Music] look at this on this edition of the fifth estate a ton of needles holy crow look at that when it's easier for kids to get high than it is for them to get help what's apparent to do you love me very much to watch your kid dying and knowing what's coming and not to be able to do anything is the most gut-wrenching feeling in the world we take you inside their struggle to keep kids alive what should i have done it's it's a torment that doesn't stop i was so reckless with my drug taking if i die tonight whatever that's just the end for me the parents feel that they have lost control of their own children with the support of government legislation i'm mark kelly in victoria bc we're in a state of emergency a health crisis that's killing almost 20 canadians a day not from coven from opioids and the victims are getting younger and younger last year a 12 year old girl overdosed and died here but all across the country parents are facing roadblocks when they try to put their own child into treatment if the kid doesn't want to go it's their choice so tonight we're asking could tough love save lives this is the fifth estate victorian city units we want to find them before they harm someone else we're in downtown victoria if we go down pandora an urgent search is on for a teenager in trouble this cop and this counselor are in pursuit i am on the west side and i think they know the suspect a street kid and heavy drug user who pulled a knife during a robbery we have patrol officers actually dealing with the sort of the nuts and bolts of the call they fear this arrest could end badly it's a pretty um high risk situation for the next unit for both the youth and anyone around them she's in custody as they close in they hear police have the suspect good she's in custody and everyone's safe a tuft of pink in a sea of blue and they're only 15 years old hi um so they were just arrested for allegedly pulling a knife and they're safe there may be some benefits to that right you know they won't be on the streets they won't be using for some kids a jail cell is the best way to keep them from drugs and an arrest may be the only way to get them into rehab shouldn't there be a better way it's a question parents are asking across the city and beyond as opioids take a grip on kids like never before that's what happened here i come across a makeshift memorial for olivia mahany known as liv she died here in this doorway alone with too many drugs in her system she was just 17. she lived by a struggle with liv almo like since she was about three she's had adhd and anxiety liv was one of 210 people in bc to die from drug use last november alone and then we finally got her on the right road and like the right school and stuff like that she was sarah paulner's only child baby if you give it to me i'll give it to you as long as you want [Music] she's funny and funky and feisty and you know she's my only child and she was just full of life and happiness where did you see things with her start to change um and she just started like i think it was like about a year into high school and then she hung out with a girl that was her best friend and um that girl always had an older boyfriend and then they started going downtown we tracked down liv's best friend mika who was with her the night she died they were hanging out here a spot called the whale wall it's like a meeting spot it's friends it's drugs it's like just being around people but she was taking a lot of risks down to him yeah we all were we all are like every day it's crazy every single day why why why take the risks because it feels like home downtown live found freedom and drugs found her i was addicted to math she was addicted to mass she was addicted to heroin and i couldn't save both of us didn't just everything that i thought just came true just like took her like under two months for the streets to like take her two months that's how quickly our kids can slide okay so out to west shore yes mia golden and gord mcgee know what parents like sarah are up against have you seen jaden lately me as a counselor gourds a plainclothes cop so we're just going to go check in on her the goal is always to be engaging with as many kids as we can and just be a constant for them together they patrol streets keeping an eye out for the almost 200 kids in their caseload what's your daily mission we're just going from one fire to the next and we're [Music] you know barely keeping above water because there was just the two of us and we're dealing with many many many drug dealers many predators um and uh it yeah it's it's a lot what else have we got here i've mia sees kids as young as 12 years old okay let's go today me and gord are looking for a 17 year old same age as liv yeah she was here about an hour ago she was in bad shape apparently they've heard she's sleeping here along with her dealer i think it's i think she's with kyle but it's hard to help when their hands are tied here youth have to volunteer to be returned home there's nothing that we can do in the way the systems are at the present time to be able to compel her to do anything if she doesn't want to they can't intervene to get this 17 year old off drugs or even off the street she had to consent bottom line and then they said their advice to me the police was to get her charged with a crime why was that their advice because she'd have a curfew and then if she was out past her curfew like a probation then they could bring her home i don't want to have a criminal record like i'm a helpless i can't like i felt so helpless as a parent to watch your kid dying and knowing what's coming and not to be able to do anything is the most gut-wrenching feeling in the world to watch your child deteriorate in front of your eyes now she um uses heroin and she's overdosed and her parents are frantic i wonder if she's up at um yeah you can try yeah okay back on their search mia and gord want to make sure the teen is okay and give her parents some peace of mind is that her i'm pretty sure [Music] it's about all they can do but they come up empty so yeah not her okay if if you could have had the power to do what you wanted to do what would that have been to have the right to put my child that has a mental disability and is addicted to drugs into a detox program that's what i want because at least she would be off this she would be in the detox this year we've had way too many deaths of of kids and when you hear about a death of a kid what what is that how does that hit you um it's hard because we feel really helpless that's one of the struggles you know we we we're always looking for the wins and we're always um because it's really important to keep that hope but it can be overwhelming [Music] here in bc to get kids off the streets and into drug treatment the kids need to consent no matter what their age in fact across canada a physician's legal advisory group says the legal age of majority has become largely irrelevant when it comes to young people consenting to medical treatment if the kids are deemed mature enough by their doctors they can decide to consent to or refuse treatment what like what do you see when you look at that picture i see a very stoic handsome young man rachel staples and brock urchuk think that's the wrong approach it's been almost four years since they lost their fight to keep their son elliot alive he was just 16. now they're fighting for change elliot was our oldest son and he was quirky funny um he was a good academic student he was athletic he was a really good friend a very good brother curiosity didn't lead elliot to using opioids it was pain an athlete he was riddled with injuries over a period of 24 months and four surgeries elliott was repeatedly prescribed opiates by his doctors and when the prescriptions ran out he became his own chemist eliot's hidden addiction came out after he was hospitalized with a blood infection he he got a pass to go to a movie i returned him to the hospital at about 10 o'clock at night that night he had an overdose in the hospital found non-responsive and blue i have no idea what's happening with my son he's not sharing with me what led to this overdose nobody has told me anything about his blood chemistry what chemicals were in there what's he using where's he getting these things what could a parent do it was a tug of war between elliot's right to privacy and his parents need to take care of him though he was just a teen and struggling with addiction elliott was still calling the shots because of the privacy laws in british columbia that infants care act if a child doesn't want a parent to understand what's going on with them they can tell the physician you can't tell my parents and is that what elliot did and that's what elliot did she looked at me and she said if i find out that you're taking your son across the border against his will that's considered kidnapping i would be required by law to report this a relapse to me would be doing opiates every day and currently i feel i don't feel like i want that but i do feel like it will happen my problem hasn't been solved it's basically a taking time bomb if anyone knows the struggle of addiction it's liam cooper i have to be concentrated on driving when the 21 year old craves he drives kind of gives me a way to focus on something and not let my mind drift too far down the rabbit hole back in high school he was trading chocolate chip cookies for prescription opiates i just wanted to not feel the constant barrage of my anxiety and and it was in school where he met elliott urchuk boom gang then in high school we just started hanging out he was kind of like on the same level as me as wanting to escape one like his emotions or whatever but the bond that brought them together was the bond that tore them apart i was so reckless with my drug taking taking up drugs it was just i didn't care the last time liam saw elliot they did some heroin in a restaurant bathroom elliott went to a party liam went home it just hit me so hard that like that stuff obviously had a lot of fentanyl on it more than we were used to the next thing i remember it's 10 o'clock and then midnight and i'm sitting there thinking like i just passed out and around midnight i was like i am scared i am going to die dee do you do you live with any kind of guilt that that you were the survivor and he didn't make it oh yeah every day every day i think why am i alive why why wasn't i the one today [Music] how much you have thought about what could we have done to save our son have you have you said it if only we did this full of would have should have could have three years seven months 24 days every night you travel a road a road has turns you make a decision do i take a right do i take a left every day what should i have done it's it's a torment that doesn't stop [Music] with his brain hijacked by drugs did elliot really know what was best for him after he was revived from an earlier overdose brock begged the doctor for help please keep him in the hospital until we can fully understand what's happening here and have a plan and have a plan to address his health that was on the 12th pleading he was just charged 36 hours later with giving us a a a binder of pamphlets of different resources in town all of which had waiting lists two months later elliott was dead [Music] in a letter to the bc coroner his parents requested a public inquiry to address among other things the laws which they say robbed them of parental authority to make critical decisions for their drug addicted child eliot's story then made headlines across the country that was in 2018 four years later teens are still dying and the law is still the same [Music] so why can teenagers stop their parents from helping that's a question i put to the bc government's child advocate well the reality is that it's a legislative right for the child to provide consent or not provide consent to have other people notified of their medical condition when we're dealing with a child who's dealing with an addiction who may be dealing with a mental health problem i mean this is a child in crisis why are we giving that child that power to say i don't i don't agree to consent i don't want help it's it's tricky because what we often see is young people have reasons for the information not wanting to be shared for example if a parent is notified the young child that the child goes home there could be some very severe consequences so many families that would not be the case but nonetheless we have to be mindful that the young person has the right to determine what who gets informed the infants act was designed to allow teenage girls to access contraception dr tom rushowski testified at elliott urchuk's inquest he believes the law needs to evolve with the times it's been flipped around to um i'm going to say twisted so that a youth can refuse uh um care that's never been the intent but it's created this this gray zone where clinicians and and the emergency room doctors are at the point the end of this stick and when a drug addicted kid is in crisis many provinces have something called secure care where a child can be held without their consent but not in bc there's been a burning debate in the province for decades and still no consensus doctors need some clarity but also patients need protection are are these individuals really in any position to be making medical choices in our opinion no dr roshowski says a secure care law would buy time and help kids figure out safer options it's two to five days maybe seven days let the brain clear their prefrontal cortex which is developing over time will will give them the capacity to right the ship the worst thing we can do is sort of say okay off you go better luck next time in an effort to be overprotective of rights um to be extra cautious we've thrown the baby out with the bath water we've we've forgotten what we're here for i guess what everyone's trying to figure out is how do we help someone who's in that position what's the key i mean for me it would have been just understanding but someone needs to understand the teachers the principals the parents the doctors anyone that's trying to help they can't to come at you and tell you this is what you need to do this is what's going to help you we're going to send you here we're going to put you on this in the u.s parents can go even further putting kids under 18 into long-term treatment centers like this there's a 24-hour nurse staff here that specializes in withdrawal and detox symptoms without their consent that's what rachel wanted to do she believed tough love was the only option left to save her son but when a social worker found out she looked at me and she said if i find out that you're taking your son across the border against his will that's considered kidnapping i would be required by law to report this this is my son whose life is at risk i that's when i just kind of went what options do we have here there was none children are dying in bc right now we need to imagine a new approach absolutely so does that not involve something like tough love where we need to crack down on the kids and say we're going to do this for you how do you feel about that when young people are detained against their will when they are forced into treatment there is again a backlash there's basically kind of a screw you phenomenon that ends up happening so young people are not ready for the treatment and therefore they don't participate and engage in the treatment and when they are discharged then their tolerance is down they are more likely to go back to the kinds of behaviors that they were before because we haven't addressed the underlying issues and this elliot yeah so that's his parents got those made um when he passed away and yeah just gone but but not forgotten yeah so i like to keep that up in my house and i actually right below that have his ashes really that his parents gave me um here yeah in that container so would forcing elliott into drug treatment have saved his life perhaps the only person who could answer that question is his best friend it's just people doing the drugs know what they need most no parent once wants their child to be an addict yeah especially in the age of fentanyl when being an addict could also be a descent yeah but at the same time no kid wants to be an addict i didn't want to be an addict whatever happened in our lives we are here and we don't know how to get out we don't know where to go from here but that seems to be to me the perfect time for treatment then if if you don't know where to go and you don't know how to get there then you need help i i i do agree with that but the help is essentially abstinence so it's a different kind of help yeah it's not lock this kid up sober and let him go in a week two weeks a month six months however long and expect them to stay sober it it it should be revolved around making sure they're safe look at this it's incredible a ton of needles holy crow look at that when we come back did you need a naloxone kit we have the nasal ones if you can't force kids into care what residents in a bc town are doing instead it's a cycle yeah and it's a cycle we're currently trying to break just 60 kilometers north of victoria the city of duncan population 5000 the opioid crisis doesn't discriminate it finds kids wherever they are and that has parents in duncan on edge you know we can make our our beautiful home we call the couch valley healthy again it's early morning let's move let's go there's tension here as a group of locals sets out to take back their streets one used needle at a time look at this a ton of needles holy crow look at that i'm gonna guess probably 40 to 50 needles [Music] within minutes kathy schmidt finds evidence of the problem that's dividing this community that's your cooking kit so that's what you cook your drugs with which we've got alcohol swabs so this is probably a youth because this youth has um youth outreach cards this knapsack of needles highlights duncan's dilemma how best to save kids lives sometimes we hit the mother lode and we're not really happy when we do plants i want to go and dump some of my needles in the heat in the heavy all right because i'm full and glorified these needles are likely from the local overdose prevention site it opened in 2017 a source of controversy ever since i'm just gonna go dump my sharps container that was a little bit fuller than i thought and then here's for when they cook up the heroin not everyone agrees handing out these kits is the best way to keep kids safe all we're doing now is enabling and that's a big word to me joe thorne is an elder with the cowichan tribe's first nation he led a protest after the overdose death of a 14 year old and i asked what's going on and no one had answers i got mad i got really angry and i made a sign he thinks people are too soft on drug users and drug dealers we went right to the right to the homes of the people selling drug dealers and we let them know that we're not taking this anymore you're leaving and this is exactly what joe worries about good morning are you okay hey i will i won't let anybody see you are you sure you're okay hun for every needle there's a story a broken life mental health issues and few resources especially for teens are you okay yeah yeah so we know she's a teenager yeah so here's a prime example we know she needs care right now anybody would know that if we seen a dog wandering down the street right now and had a tag on it we'd pick that dog up and get it to the scca right but yet you know here she's gonna be sitting here and we're gonna walk there's nothing to offer her well i can see a naloxone kit in there and they think that she's maybe 16 years old for now local shelters don't accept kids under 19 and there are plenty of them on dunkin streets there's like zero support we have kids counseling like crazy here couch of all the youth services have got a huge lineup [Applause] and only steps away is that more kids sitting out there jesus six years ago in response to the rise in opioid deaths bc declared a state of emergency but covet has made matters worse pushing addicts into isolation so is harm reduction the solution giving users a safe supply of drugs more safe injection sites more treatment options from the news i'm from the news how you doing i'm doing good how are you i'm all right you guys okay people like jaden well we're just checking on um seeing how young people are doing how can i ask you how long have you been using since i was 12. since since you were 12 and how old are you now i'm 19 now 19. he says he lost touch with his parents and relies on the nearby shelter to get by the resources are okay but when it comes to everything else so many people are dying what they can be doing better is like having having somebody from the government office come and take a walk down here and what what would they see if they would see they'd they'd see that this is actually a lot worse than they thought do you see a day where you'll ever get clean i don't know man honestly i hope so you ever look again does she ever look at going for any kind of treatment um yeah actually i've tried numerous times wouldn't work out you take care jaden okay yeah you too see you guys thanks for taking the time to talk to us how does that hit you it hurts it it really hurts that could be my son my brother that could be anybody in my family joe thorne says kids like jaden should be forced into treatment but they're people who will say that tough love is it just isn't the answer to them i would say how do you feel going on at night how do you feel about your kids going to school how do you feel about their safety sometimes you got to do things you don't like i just get so damn mad at the way things are and i think i see in my mind how things could be and that i'm going to keep reaching until i get close to that because there are parents out there they're saying where were you why didn't you help me next door to duncan the cowichan tribe's first nation is taking a different approach teresa lunch is here these tiny homes are for addicts to keep them off the streets lunch is here [Music] there you go good uh do you need a spoon it took me almost two years to finally say i work in harm reduction and i hand out kits and whatnot why why do what do people think about people like you who are working in harm reduction uh that we're enabling them really that we're only enabling them pushing them to do more drugs or overdose or anything like that when in reality we're what my goal is to try and save them until they're ready and that can mean teaching kids how to shoot up safely so this is what we hand out for our youth if we can't teach them quick enough so the yellow spots are to avoid green spots are safer and red is dangerous and it shows that on the back did you need a naloxone kit we have the nasal ones right now a larger proportion of indigenous people die from drug deaths than anyone else highlighting another barrier to help did you did you want the it's just the bubbles okay there's a couple do you need any when they are ready what can you do for them to help them um we do have detox treatments or but that's out of town that's all we can offer right now is shipping them off to somewhere else for treatment or detox so if they need it right then and right there they have to wait and either get into it's weeks weeks and that could mean more lives lost so how is the bc government responding in 2017 bc was the first province to create a ministry of mental health and addictions to lead the response to the opioid crisis so the fifth estate requested an interview with the minister sheila malkinson to discuss our investigation we were told she's not available bc has announced a 500 million dollar investment in mental health and addictions care the largest portion of that spending is deferred to 2023-24 bc's youth watchdog says more support should be available to kids no matter how young now i think it's government trying to figure out where are they going to put their energy and what are they going to work on first but the parents that we're speaking to yeah are shouting from the rooftops and they feel that they have lost control of their own children with the support of government legislation yep and i understand that i sit with many many parents who've lost their beloved children and that is i would say that the two most common refrains are i felt like i had no say and i felt like there was nothing for us i kept asking for help and there was nothing for us i i remember you from like a long time ago when we come back it's about getting help for you guys right and not judging you getting to the kids before the drugs do [Music] listen to what's going on in this grade eight class in delta bc today's lesson a sign of a country in crisis in bc in our province there are six people that have died every single day from from six people so more than cocaine the message is blunt the next victim could be you it's about getting help for you guys right and not judging you curtis miller is a youth care worker who spent years in and out of jail before he got clean when he talks the kids listen how real how real do you think that is pretty real so in my family in november my granddaughter died it was the saddest day of my life my granddaughter was 17 years old his granddaughter was liv mahani who died alone on the streets of victoria so not much older than you guys right few years older than you and this is the reality of it so like it's not just other people if they're old enough to refuse care they're old enough for some tough talk when when we got into the classroom today and i looked around i guess one of my first reactions was boy these kids are young yeah and and then and to be honest and fair and like you know i i know that a lot of them are already doing stuff right i heard a lot of messages today but one thing i didn't hear was don't do drugs yeah because it's not it's already doing it how do you say don't do drugs my job is not to condem or to get them in trouble or anything like that my job is to help them that's the main focus curtis is a survivor at the age of 11 he was doing heroin curtis grew up in a drug house violence and police raids were the norm this video tells his life story part of a tribute to his overcoming adversity ladies and gentlemen the 2013 courage to come back award recipient for social adversity curtis miller i got hurt lots of times and uh got shot shot and stabbed and you know did a lot of bad drugs everybody's here for a reason everybody's here to do things in life and you know it's just maybe i needed to do that and go through that journey to do the things i do today [Applause] it rebuilt a relationship with his daughter sarah someone he barely knew when i found one when he finally found me i found out your name wasn't alicia anne at all but it's sarah my girl you have turned out so perfect but for all the good he's done for other kids curtis couldn't save sarah's daughter liv his own granddaughter and it's a difficult thing because it's your family and it's your your daughter like my daughter doesn't understand any of that she didn't live that life this carving will become two swans sarah's one her daughter live the other together forever you know my granddaughter is like it's hard to say like what would have worked and what wouldn't have worked we do drugs because we don't like the way that we feel and we want to change it right so if you want to change that if you want to change the way that in the big picture then we have to go back and we have to start at the beginning [Music] back in victoria a glimmer of hope as counselor mia golden spots a familiar face [Music] i i remember you from like a long time ago probably eight seven years yeah how are you good a lot better now he's been in and out of of custody and he's been he's done treatment a few times and uh but he he's always been like a really um engaging like there's you know and that's the thing with most of these kids there's that sweet um kid inside still good for you good to see you thank you yeah for me that was a win to see him a alive still like it you know he recognized me that's a win that's a win it shouldn't be another win liv's friend mika is now getting the help she needs the only reason i got help was because my best friend died but i just i couldn't imagine her dead ever mika is one of the lucky ones a bed opened in a treatment facility she's been clean now for weeks so how do you get those kids into treatment they should definitely be taken somewhere for a little bit like just make them stop because they're killing themselves and people are just watching like drugs aren't happiness and for all the kids we've lost will their deaths make a difference sarah never visited her daughter's memorial now long gone it hurts me it just to me it's a reminder of how everything failed and how she could just die there with her friends no one noticed her but she hopes that bringing liv's story to life can help keep other kids alive hi i'm sarah hi i'm olivia and um we're just making a video um and what do you want to say um i'm 15. i'm 42 and i am we i'm a single mom and you love me very much right and that's um just me and her alone uh hanging out and we love each other a lot and yeah that's it right is there anything else you want to say oh no okay thanks bye say bye bye [Music] you

Channel: The Fifth Estate

Views: 560,294

Keywords: opioids, opioid crisis, drug addiction, addiction, youth and opioids, addicted kids, British Columbia, Victoria BC, opioid epidemic, harm reduction, overdose, fentanyl, addiction treatment, Canada, CBC, CBC News, The Fifth Estate, CBC Fifth Estate

Id: mwgHq60oBUo

Length: 43min 7sec (2587 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022