"We have a problem and we're trying to do something about it," Karen Kirkwood-Whyte, executive director of the United Way of Chatham-Kent, told members of council at their Sept. 19 meeting. Kirkwood-Whyte also acts as a co-chair of the drug strategy group with councillor Marjorie Crew.
In a presentation of the work that has been accomplished over the past two years, Kirkwood-Whyte said that while drugs are prevalent and becoming more accessible, "most devastating is crack and methamphetamine for their addictive characteristics.
"And with drugs, like violence, there are no social or economic boundaries," she said.
She went on to note that the costs associated with drugs cause a large dependency on health care, the judicial system, social services and public health issues like sexually transmitted diseases and dirty needles.
In 2002, more than $26 million was spent in Chatham-Kent on substance abuse.
"I think we can all agree that that $26 million could be better spent," she said.
Kirkwood-Whyte said under the four pillars of prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction, she believes more money needs to be pumped into prevention.
"If we as a community could invest more time, money and energy into prevention, we would save on treatment and enforcement."
She said the common dollar figure thrown around is that for every dollar spent in prevention, $7 is saved down the road.
"There is no doubt that the vast majority of funding goes to this ( enforcement ) pillar."
She said increasing public awareness, sharing best practices and creating safe and supportive and healthy public policy are all means of prevention strategy.
"We are told we need more information, education, neighbourhood care, nursing networks and physicians offices."
She added that an increased presence of drug enforcement officers by a street team and information assigned directly to a platoon commander and non-traditional strategies to disrupt, displace and dismantle drug activity are also key eliminating substance abuse.
At a time when factories and businesses continue to layoff and close down, Kirkwood-Whyte said the number of people turning to substances such as drugs and alcohol to help cope will increase.
"There is still much to do at various levels to bring forward recommendations to you," she said, "but we want to create awareness and put it on the radar screen.
"We do know from experience that we always work better when we work together."
While the presentation was meant to be just that, Kirkwood-Whyte left council with some food for thought.
"What council can do to help is endorse the work of the Local Drug Strategy and acknowledge the good work underway, they can recognize drugs and other additions as a current and growing community issue.
"Council can promote tri-sector ( business, government and voluntary ) responses to such issues and commit to more investment in social infrastructure in 2010 budget and beyond."
She added that council can also assist in leveraging funding from other levels of government and granting bodies.
Crew said the local strategy group had met with neighbouring communities Windsor and Sarnia, both of which have moved forward and begun implementing some of the suggested items.
"We couldn't be part of a tri-county strategy because we don't have our own strategy," she said, adding that that is changing as passionate people and agencies comes to the table.
"This is not one neighbourhood, this is not one town, it's the whole community," she said.
