The Daily Gleaner, April 23, 2005 .
Former drug addict Rick Chase is a regular at the methadone clinic, located in the Victoria Health Centre, in downtown Fredericton. He says methadone has helped him kick his drug habit and get on with his life.
When former drug addict Rick Chase stood up to ad dress a crowd about the benefits of methadone, he said the last time he faced so many people was at his court trial.
But after three years of methadone treatment, Chase stood before the 30 people attending a recent community forum on tackling drug abuse as a courageous man with an inspired message.
“I’ve got a long way to go, but I am going to make it,” he said.
“Methadone helped me to lead a better life than I ever thought possible.”
For Chase, his way out of drugs was methadone.
But it has been a long and difficult journey.
While many people might think of drug users as poor and unfortunate, Chase said, that’s not always the case.
He was born into a life of privilege and was driven to school in a Cadillac. He loved sports and was the captain of his hockey team.
“I had every advantage,” Chase said. “I never thought I would break my mother’s heart.”
By the age of 13, he had started experimenting with drugs.
By 16, he was injecting drugs into his body, an experience he describes as putting a gun in someone’s hand.
“It was my final step toward prison,” Chase said.
As his life drifted into Fredericton’s drug underworld, he began travelling to Florida to bring back drugs.
At 22, he was caught and charged with importing illegal drugs.
“I prayed to God that He would get me out of this one,” he said. “I told myself I would change my life around.”
And, after three years in prison, he did. He worked for his father’s businesses, married a woman and tried to start a family.
But a string of bad luck came back to haunt Chase. Over six months, he suffered through several deaths in the family, even his dog, and his marriage was crumbling.
“I had no one to reach out to,” he said.
His solution to the feeling of emptiness was a drink at the local tavern. A few hours and many drinks later, he had flipped his truck over on the highway.
After more drugs and contracting hepatitis C through sharing needles, Chase was sent to prison for a second time.
“We all want to be liked and fit in,” he told a silent, attentive audience at the conference. “To do this, I chose this path.”
Chase said he had other friends, but it was the ones who used drugs who seemed to understand and accept him.
But not anymore.
Three years ago, Chase started using methadone, a synthetic drug that replaces some of a drug’s addiction and reduces cravings. It’s known as a maintenance drug for recovering drug addicts.
Methadone might not work for everyone, Chase said, but it has worked for him.
He has been off drugs for three years.
“I’ll probably die of this (hepatitis C), but it doesn’t have to be today,” he said. “I am starting to see hope for my broken life.”
While Chase’s impassioned speech drew rounds of applause, two other experts at the panel said similar personal struggles are a good example of how society has to look differently at drug addiction.
St. Thomas University criminology professor Chris McCormick said heavy fines and police crackdowns on illegal drugs are having a perverse effect.
Rather than discouraging drug use, it’s raising drug prices and leading to more associated crimes, such as assault and robbery, to pay for an addict’s next fix.
For dealers, the industry is becoming so lucrative that legitimate employment seems like a waste of time.
“Why work at McDonald’s flipping burgers when you can make $1,000 a day selling narcotics?” McCormick said.
He said if society used alternative methods to combat drug use such as methadone, which costs about $13 a day for each addict, the return on saved health-care and prevention expenses would be significant.
The forum’s other speaker was Gordon Skead, River Valley Health’s director of addiction services.
He said drug abuse is costing New Brunswickers millions of dollars every year in police and health expenses.
The need is exemplified by the Brunswick Street facility’s needle exchange program, which ballooned from a few hundred users to thousands in a few years.
“Hope and change (for our patients) drives this program,” Skead said. “But we need to do more and take ownership as a community.”
Skead’s department took over the Community Health Clinic’s popular methadone program last year.
He said the clinic receives so many clients looking for methadone that it will be expanding its staff.
The forum, called Addictions: Seeking Solutions in the Community and Methadone Maintenance Program, was sponsored by a number of government groups and public societies, including the Fredericton Citizen’s Advisory Committee to the Correctional Service of Canada.