Pubdate: Tue, 02 May 2006 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2006 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Tony Lofaro, The Ottawa Citizen Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) DRUG ADDICTS TELL THEIR STORIES Filmmaker David Adkin Chronicles the Lives of Several Drug Users, Including Scott Mcallister, Who Got Clean Using Methadone, and Ben And Chad, Whose Addictions Led Them to Suicide. the Film Was Screened Yesterday As Part of Mental Health Week, Tony Lofaro Reports. Scott McAllister used to be a panhandler, always begging strangers for money to buy his hard drugs of choice. The 36-year-old man lived that way for years, and he knew he would probably die that way. That is until a friend suggested he go for treatment at a methadone clinic. "Methadone saved my life," Mr. McAllister says in the documentary Prescription for Addiction, an unsparing look at the increasing addiction to prescription opiate pain medications, or prescription drugs. The 85-minute documentary tells stories about individuals, including Lisa, a car accident survivor and prescription drug addict, and Ben and Chad, who committed suicide because of their addictions to prescription drugs. It also looks at the growing dependency on prescribed drugs among those living on a First Nation reserve, and it examines Thunder Bay, where an epidemic of opioid use has caused a rash of drug store break-ins and more drug use in the community. The film was screened yesterday at the RA Centre, as part of a kick-off to Mental Health Week. "Methadone doesn't work for everybody. Some people get off and on it quickly, but it worked for me," said Mr. McAllister in an interview yesterday. "My teeth were falling out, I was 30 years-old and living in a hostel. I knew there was a better way," said Mr. McAllister, who has been on a methadone program for six years. Methadone is a synthetic narcotic used to wean patients off opiate-based painkillers and heroin. He said he's back in touch with his family, which he had abandoned during his years on drugs, and he's reconnected with his teenage daughter. He is unable to work and he expects to get a disability pension because his heavy drug use caused many medical ailments, including severe vertebrae problems, osteoporosis and hepatitis C. There are no accurate statistics on the number of people in Canada who engage in the non-medical use of prescription drugs or who experience dependence on prescription drugs, says the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse. But according to a report by Columbia University's National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse, the number of Americans who abuse controlled prescription drugs has gone from 7.8 million to 15.1 million since 1992. Several years ago, U.S. conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh admitted to listeners he had become addicted to painkillers and had to undergo a treatment program for his addiction. Mr. Limbaugh had been under investigation for allegedly buying thousands of pain pills, including the powerful drug OxyContin, from his housekeeper. Filmmaker David Adkin expects the documentary to be used as an educational tool and said it was made to raise awareness about the problem of prescription drug addiction. "Since the mid-'90s when drugs like Oxycontin were produced in the United States and then in Canada with many times the dosage of oxycodone (a powerful pain medication) in them, you started to see an increase in the numbers of people coming to hospital emergency rooms and at addiction programs," said Mr. Adkin, who wrote and researched the documentary. The documentary was commissioned by the Ontario Federation of Community Mental Health and Addiction Programs from a Health Canada grant. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake