Now that they’ve got the dope on dope, Jayne Yearwood is confident that she and her colleagues at the Seton Health Centre will be more capable of handling situations stemming from the use and overuse of street drugs.

“I didn’t know very much about street drugs, and neither did my colleagues,” Yearwood said. “There’s really no way of knowing what to expect from people who have taken these drugs.”

Yearwood was feeling good thanks to several sessions run last week by Steve Walton, a retired police officer from Calgary who provides info sessions on the dangers of street drugs like crystal meth, ecstasy, heroin and cocaine for front-line responders like nurses, ambulance operators and fire departments.

“I’m really happy with how it turned out,” Yearwood said. “80 people went through some part of the sessions and there was good interest from the rest of the community, too.”

Yearwood hopes to bring Walton back in two years to run a refresher course, but in the meantime, she believes that it could be worthwile to pass along some of the lessons learned to all Jasperites.

“It would be good to do a whole blitz, a week-long thing with the dope on dope,” she said.

Beyond the general sessions about the behaviour and medical outcomes exhibited by people who use street drugs, Walton also evaluated the hospital’s procedures for handling drug-related scenarios.

“He did make some suggestions about what could be changed,” Yearwood said.

Walton also ran a special session for the Jasper Volunteer Fire Brigade on the dangers and warning signs of clandestine drug creation labs.

“This fellow was really good, an excellent presenter with plenty of life experience,” said Fire Chief Greg Van Tighem. While Van Tighem has done similar training numerous times, he found the session valuable both for himself and the less experienced members of the brigade. Knowing what the warning signs are for a drug cooking operation is vitally important, he said.

“Obviously, we go into burning buildings when no one else would, and if we were to blunder into a meth lab, the potential for a tragedy is there. If we know what we’re looking for, we’ll know when to pull out.”

The Jasper Fire Department is as well-prepared for these situations as they can be, Van Tighem said.

“If there was a catastrophic failure of a cook operation, it  doesn’t matter who you are. No one can be prepared for that.”

A desire to be better prepared was the reason that Yearwood brought Walton to Jasper in the first place, and she’s committed to making sure that the community keeps on top of the street drug situation.

“We need to be proactive and not reactive,” she said. “We live in a great community and we need to keep it that way.”