New Waterford facing drug crisis, addicts agree

Two drug addicts in New Waterford are backing up residents' complaints that drug abuse is a growing problem among young people in their neighbourhoods.

Some people in the Cape Breton community say needles littering the streets are a suresign of drug addicts, while others say the problem is fuelling a crime wave.

But not much surprises Robert MacKinnon and Brian MacKinnon, cousins who have had drug problems for decades.

"It's amazing to see the ages of some of them, 13, 14, 15, addicted to painkillers, cocaine, needles," said Robert MacKinnon, 47, a self-described crack smoker who started using drugs at age 12.

"I've battled for many years with it and I'll battle for the rest of my life."

Brian MacKinnon, 43,lost his father when he was 13, and he says life went downhill from there. The cocaine user and OxyContin addict is surprised there aren't more deaths because he says young people don't understand that, depending on how the drug has been cut, a safe amount one day canbe deadlythe next.

"I ask the kids, 'What are you doing?'They're doing Rivotril [clonazepam], OxyContin," Brian said. "They're taking so much before it gets a chance to kick in because it's slow-release."

If pill of oxycodone(the active ingredient in OxyContin)is crushed and injected, it can produce a heroin-like high.

As few years ago, police and health workers in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality reported a rising number of deaths and crimes connected to painkiller abuse. The number of prescriptions given out for oxycodone and other drugs later dropped as a result of a crackdown.

But one owner of a pub and restaurant told CBC News earlier this week his staff regularly picks up about a dozen needles a week outside his business.

Robert MacKinnon agrees with residents who say drug addiction is fuelling crime.

"It's definitely leading up to crime because you've got to be able to afford your habit. Myself, I've been from the time I was 12 right up until 2004 in jails, reform school, prisons and it was all from crime to feed my habit," he said.

The cousinssay schools need to bring in people like them totell young peopletheirstories about drug addiction. Stories like the way Robert MacKinnon's sister, also a drug addict, died.

"I wish I could go back and have my years over again and know what I know today," said Brian MacKinnon.