Montreal's heroin chic

Five organizations working with drug users made a plea to the Montreal regional health and social services board last week for a plan of action on preventing drug addiction in the city. >> Armed with statistics showing that the number of 12- to 18-year-olds regularly taking drugs has quintupled in five years, and that a third of Montreal's street kids use drugs intravenously, the coalition pointed out that Montreal is probably the only major city in the industrialized world to lack a plan of action on drug addiction. >> Studies have found that Montreal is the world capital for intravenous injection of drugs and receives more heroin shipments than any other city in Canada. >> Norman Bourgeois, head of the Centre de recherche et d'aide pour narcomanes de Montréal, one of the five groups, blames the rise in heroin's popularity on its steady fall in price and a certain mystique it's acquired thanks to movies like Trainspotting: "It's in fashion," Bourgeois says. --Jacquie Charlton