Desperate mom brings daughter to CTrain station to buy drugs; here's what she learned

First they found a phone number on a bus bench at Banff Trail station in Calgary. 

Then — following instructions from that phone call — Vanessa Redmond drove her daughter to Lion's Park Station and let her out. Soon she was watching her adult daughter smoke drugs on the platform, meters away from another mother and her young child.

It was a shock. A heartache. An eye-opening experience she will never forget. 

"They were all there hanging out, looking for each other — she was looking for drugs, and as soon as she walked to the shelter she found them right away," Redmond said, describing the community of addiction and support her daughter sought on Calgary Transit when she needed it.

"I was literally looking around thinking, 'This can't be happening. There's other people here. There's cameras. Are you not worried about when the train pulls up?' Nobody (in that group) seemed to be affected by it."

Redmond came forward to share her story as part of CBC Calgary's focus on transit security.

Calgary is facing an opioid crisis and drug use is now common at stations up and down the line. In addition to the heartache it causes family, friends and those addicted, Calgarians tell CBC it's driving people away from using critical transportation infrastructure.

People even smoke and inject in CTrain cars, according to the hundreds of Calgary residents who responded when CBC Calgary asked last week.

So why are people choosing transit stations to use?

For Redmond's daughter, it was the easiest place to access what she needed. She had been at the Calgary Remand Centre. When her mom picked her up, it had been a long time since she had any drugs in her system.

Redmond worried that if her daughter couldn't find drugs, she wouldn't be able to keep her home through the night in order to bring her to a detox centre the next morning.

"Why exactly is it on the trains? From what I've seen and the conversations I've had with my own daughter, I think it's easy to find your friends. You go to one stop and if you don't see what you're looking for, you just keep on going," said Redmond. 

"It's warm. Your friends are there. You can hang out. You can find what you need."

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