Vancouver mayor wants our chronic addicts to be given substitute drugs
The Vancouver Province
Mon 26 Feb 2007
Byline: Sam Sullivan
Not long ago, I received a call from security in the downtown building where one of my non-profit foundations was located. They called to let me know they had caught someone rifling through my van. I found out the guy they caught had come from the Prairies and was stealing to support his drug addiction.
My story is one of thousands that have sadly become all too common in Vancouver. It is clear drug addiction is the root cause of so many of the social ills and public disorder in our region.
I believe the solution lies in more housing throughout the region, more treatment for people with mental illness -- and drug-substitution treatment for chronic addicts.
No one disputes the fact Vancouver has the best track record in Canada when it comes to supporting social housing. But despite these investments, Vancouver lacks treatment programs that place public-order outcomes at the same level as health ones. And we don't have enough treatment options for people who are not responding to traditional abstinence-based treatments. One of the most powerful motivators for all three levels of government to develop long-term solutions to our drug-addiction problem is that, in just under three years, over 10,000 members of the world media will be in our region for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
That is why, over the past year, I have helped bring a new drug-treatment program to Vancouver. It rejects the use of needles and illicit drugs. Rather, it will only work with legally prescribed, orally ingested pill medicines.
I know that, for many citizens, the concept of giving medication to addicted people may seem like replacing one addiction for another.
However, in scientific trials around the world, doctors and scientists have proven that connecting drug-addicted people to the medical community is a powerful important first step on the road to abstinence. Think of it another way. Everyone knows how difficult it is for those addicted to nicotine to kick their habit. That's why the patch was developed to help smokers gradually wean themselves off cigarettes. Why should kicking an addiction to illicit drugs be any different? This is especially true when you consider that many of the severely addicted people in our city are trying to beat their addiction while living in bed-bug-infested, sub-standard living conditions.
When drug-addicted people aren't spending their whole day wondering which car they need to break into to get the drugs they need, perhaps then they could get the type of counselling they so desperately require.
Scientific studies support this theory. For example, patients who have taken methadone as a substitute for heroin have reduced their level of criminal activity by up to 90 per cent.
Substitution treatment is not a panacea. But in conjunction with access to housing, counselling and job-training, it could prove to be the most significant social legacy of the 2010 Games.
Contact Mayor Sullivan at www.mayorsamsullivan.ca
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