Pubdate: Thu, 18 Apr 2002
Source: Xtra! (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002 Pink Triangle Press
Contact:  http://www.xtra.ca/site/toronto2/html/city.shtm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2152
Author: David Collins

OVERDOSE CONUNDRUM

Drug Use/Cutting Back On The 'Ooga Booga' Routine

Two serious drug overdoses this winter in two of the city's busiest 
bathhouses have triggered concern over how gay baths and nightclubs should 
handle drug overdoses.

The Feb 1 death of Kenneth Arthur Scott at the Spa On Maitland was a result 
of injecting cocaine. Insp Don Campbell of 52 Division says Scott was known 
to the police and had been arrested several times before. He was not a 
bathhouse regular.

In another incident, paramedics were called to St Marc's for a customer who 
was out of control, exhibiting symptoms of an overdose from the party drug 
GHB. He spent several hours in the emergency department.

The close timing of the two incidents has opened discussion about whether 
there is an increase in reckless drug use and what businesses should be 
doing to deal with it.

Ron McRae, assistant manager at St Marc's, says he's been seeing more problems.

"It was building up. I'd say over a six week period up to that Sunday - all 
these incidents were just getting out of control," McRae says. "Every 
weekend I would come in and somebody would be doing the ooga booga routine, 
bouncing off the walls with no towel on - which is GHB."

Steve Ireson, promoter at It nightclub says drug use will always be a part 
of going out, but that he's concerned about the popularity of GHB in 
particular. He says there's a tiny difference between doses producing happy 
feelings and doses causing convulsions.

With the unpredictable potency inherent in any illicit substance, people 
can easily overdose: Their eyes can roll back in their head as they lose 
touch with their surroundings, become incommunicative, yell or speak 
loudly, convulse, vomit, lose consciousness or have their breathing slow to 
the point of flat-lining.

"For a lot of staff members, it can be quite scary," says Ireson, a 12-year 
veteran of club management. When he worked at Industry, he barred anybody 
found with GHB.

McRae agrees that staff can't be expected to know how to be ambulance 
attendants. In February, he says his staff was calling paramedics on a 
weekly basis.

"We're wasting ambulance resources and city money with these people who are 
just being irresponsible."

Jim McMullin, general manager at the Spa On Maitland, has offered to pay 
for St John's First Aid training for any of his staff. At bigger parties, 
like the Black And Blue in Montreal, there's a medical team on site. Ireson 
says Guvernment nightclub has three paramedics on staff every night they're 
open.

At smaller venues, though, it's impossible to have specialized staff. And 
there are concerns that they shouldn't.

"I think it makes sense for the baths to be careful about providing too 
much training," says Mariana Valverde, criminology professor at the 
University Of Toronto, "because this gives the illusion they've got this 
professional help."

Valverde says the law makes it every individual's responsibility to be able 
to spot drunkenness and, for example, to prevent intoxicated people from 
driving. There is no such common knowledge for illicit drugs.

All management people I interviewed agreed that they would tend to err on 
the side of calling for an ambulance in dicey situations - even when 
customers are uncooperative and refuse treatment.

"Customer safety is definitely the most important thing and all the staff 
know that," says McMullin. "If somebody's not looking well, they act pretty 
quickly. I don't think they would hesitate to call an ambulance even if it 
was unnecessary."

Ireson blames people feeling that it's their right to openly do drugs in a 
club.

"The boys, they tend to get comfortable and then they pop a pill out in the 
open - or do a bump of K out in the open. It's disrepectful," he says.

It nightclub has put up zero tolerance posters at the front door and 
searches everyone. St Marc's started an "enough is enough" campaign after 
the February overdose. McRae says they have permanently barred as many as 
25 people under the new policy. Barrings at the Spa are "taken on a case by 
case basis," says McMullin.

Valverde says a business' liability would be limited if they take some 
initiative to deter drug use in their establishment since police can't 
claim they condone drug use. On the other side of things, there's the issue 
of privacy, especially regarding what goes on in bathhouse rooms.

"There's a line that you don't cross with a customer," says McMullin. 
"Unless you really feel that there's a problem."

Valverde wonders whether the increased trend may be connected to the 
clampdown on all-night raves with the accompanying drug use moving to 
different venues where staff and fellow clients are not as aware about drug 
use issues. She says peer education is key.

"The best approach is the sort of peer education that happened when the 
rave movement was at its height. The ravers had these little wallet-sized 
cards, This Is What An Overdose Looks Like. That was education from 
within," says Valverde. "If people are seeing themselves as part of a 
community... then maybe it's better for them to share the knowledge and 
take some responsibility for one another.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager