By Erin Hitchcock - Williams Lake Tribune
City Council wants Williams Lake to have a detox centre and plans to bill Interior Health for RCMP costs associated with dealing with drug and alcohol addicted individuals until the health authority deals with the issue. On Tuesday night, city council agreed to bill Interior Health, after having had no success in the past year trying to convince it to provide a detox centre. Members of City Council expressed their frustration that the health authority hasn’t provided a centre, which, according to the City, the Central Cariboo Joint Committee, and some First Nations communities have expressed interest in having. The City says that RCMP records show there were 1,256 reported cases of public intoxication from July 2007 to July 2008 (more than three a day) and an average of 800 arrests a year due to the problem. Mayor Scott Nelson said that equates to $150,000 a year that could be spent on dealing with other issues in the city.
“What we know is that it’s costing our community $150,000 to provide a service that we feel Interior Health should be providing,” Nelson said, adding that putting the health authority on notice is to raise awareness on a worsening situation. “The community is paying for this, and we need these services to be effective to ensure that these services will look after the people that need help.” Council will write a letter to Interior Health, explaining that it will be billed on an annually, per-call basis until it provides a detox centre and/or demonstrates a significant reduction in the RCMP resources used to deal with the issue. Nelson said the City has offered to work with and partner with Interior Health on the issue, but has had no success.
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