LOCK UP OUR SON, PARENTS PLEAD

A Burnaby couple have been to court more than 50 times in three years
to get their 17-year-old son into a lockup facility where he can be
treated for his heroin addiction.

But nothing like that exists in B.C.

"Our son is dying and no one will help us," said the distraught
mother, who did not want the family's name published.

"We have tried everything to save this child."

She says he wants to kick his addiction but it is stronger than he is.
The only way treatment will work is if he cannot escape to buy drugs.

"There's no question, leaving his treatment to him is a crime," said
his mom.

"He is not capable of choosing. You can't leave it to a sick child to
make this decision."

The parents say the judge who presides at the boy's court appearances
refuses to put a youth who needs medical treatment in a prison where
he will get no treatment.

The parents say B.C.'s few drug-treatment centres -- among them the
Last Door Treatment Centre in New Westminster -- have waiting lists of
up to 10 months.

Even when they've found him a bed, he's escaped. He escapes from
anywhere that doesn't have bars.

The parents have begged social workers, police, courts and the
government to lock the boy up so he can be saved.

Now they plan to go to court to force the ministry for children and
families either to send their son to Alberta for proper youth lockdown
drug-and-alcohol treatment or provide it here.

"These children are running rampant in order to support their habit,
and they're all dying," said the mom. "They don't feel good about
getting other kids addicted or what they're doing to themselves, but
they cannot help themselves. They know it's a slow suicide."

Under the law, a child cannot be confined for his own good, unless he
is mentally ill and a danger to himself or others.

The couple have taken their son to doctors and addiction
specialists.

They signed him into voluntary care with the ministry for children and
families. They thought that in a ministry group home he would be
supervised and there would be no drug activity.

But group homes don't have bars. He escaped and came
home.

Then he ran away to the streets and the heroin dealers.

The couple, who live with their two younger sons in a pleasant
upper-income neighbourhood, have done things few parents ever dream
they'll do.

The father has chased drug dealers from their property. He's walked
into crack houses in Coquitlam to get his son.

Last spring, he chained his son to the banister with a 12-metre chain.
The boy was high on drugs and his parents were concerned his bizarre
behaviour might end in death.

But the boy called 911.

"They were going to arrest me for unlawful confinement," said the
father.

"I told them, 'You let this kid go and you're coming to his funeral.'
So they arrested him. But the ministry told us we'd better not ever do
that again."

The couple say that almost every time their son is arrested -- for
shoplifting or break-and-enters -- he's let go.

Occasionally he's been jailed for a few days. His longest stint was 26
days.

The couple say their son's problems have brought chaos to the family.
He's stolen his brother's watch, his father's tools and money from his
mother.

Before he slid into the world of addiction, he was in school full-time
and had a successful business co-ordinating neighbourhood kids who cut
lawns, had paper routes, and cleaned up neighbours' yards.