Manitoba paramedic films documentary about meth addicts, dealers and front-line workers

As a paramedic, Rodney Bodner is used to dealing with meth addicts.

But as he transported them to hospital, he often wondered what got them there in the first place.

Theparamedic has taken his experience on the front lines of the Manitoba's meth problem andcreated a documentary film about the fight against it.

Methamphetamine:Community Under Siegefollows Winnipeg outreach groups such as Main Street Project, Bear Clan, and St. Boniface Street Links as they try to help drug users in the throes of meth addiction.

Bodner has worked as a paramedic in Manitoba for 15 years.

"We're usually dealing with an overdose, where somebody may be potentially unconscious. Our job is to get them to a hospital alive. There's not really the time to find out exactly who they are and why they started using. The back story that matters," Bodnersaid.

To get that back story,Bodner interviewed current and recovering meth users, andeven tracked down and spoke to a meth dealer.

"The person is very real," he said.

Health authorities dismissed filmmaker

When he first decided to make the film more than a year ago, Bodner saidhe couldn't get any of the Manitoba health authorities to speak with him.

He said they wouldn't give him an interview, let alone the information he was looking for about meth use in the province.

"It was very discouraging,there was no real support from them. Which actually, I'm grateful for, because it made me change gears. I decided to make my film on the people that matter, and that was the users, the organizations that are on the ground."

Instead, the film follows outreach groups, as theytry to offer meth users a warm meal, a place to sleep, and hopefully,a way to recovery.

Now that the film is out, the province's school boards association is screening it to all its trustees, hoping the film will eventually be shown to all high school students in the province.

"At many high schools in Manitoba today, [meth] isreadily available," said Alan Campbell, president of the Manitoba School Boards Association.

Campbell said he hopes the film provides education to youth who are dealing with meth in their own lives, and to the families who don't see the meth issue as a problem that affects them.

"Caregivers are doing a sweep of the playground for used needles before they let their kids play. That's a very difficult thing for the average Manitoban to wrap their head around," he said.

Bodner hopes his documentary will show people the real problem isn't meth it's poverty, mental health issues and trauma.

"Nobody wakes up in the morning, decides to put a needle in their armand decides to inject meth in their veins."

The 47-minute film is being screened Thursday night at 7 p.m. for free at the Park West Inn. The documentary will also be available on Amazon Prime next year.