Treatment needed for addicts: reader
Posted Mar 5, 2010 By Emile Therien
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Tweet ThisDear Editor,
The decision, announced by the federal government on February 9, to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn a B.C. court ruling sanctioning Vancouver's supervised Insite program is a classic case of political ideology trumping public health, medical science and common sense. We need to start treating drug addiction for what it is: a public health problem. Costly incarceration, mean-spiritedness, community pandering, media hype and political grandstanding have never worked.
Time is not on our side. Addiction, whether to alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or drugs, is an illness that requires medical attention.. The B.C. Supreme Court in its 2008 ruling recognized this fact. It is disconcerting and embarrassing that this ill-informed, ideologically driven, vote getting government is appealing such a decision.
The wealth of medical and scientific information in support of harm reduction programs and strategies is overwhelming. When evidenced-based research shows harm reduction programs are good for public health, everyone , and especially this government, should listen. But no! It continues, cheered on by its core political constituency, to plod along with strategies, however defined, that are costly, tired, dated, and have been and continue to be abject failures.
Obviously, dealing with the problems associated with drug use, including human suffering, is not high on the government's agenda.
Emile Therien
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