Pubdate: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 Source: North Shore News (CN BC) Copyright: 2009 North Shore News Contact: http://www.nsnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/311 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) STATUS QUO ADDICTS IT'S hard to understand why our provincial government, as fiscally conservative as it is, is willing to pay so much for addiction. A report from the British Columbia Medical Association, released Thursday, suggests the costs to our health care, law enforcement and economy as a whole run close to $6 billion annually. As many as one in 10 visits to Vancouver General Hospital's ER relate to substance abuse, according to the association. Across the province, enough bed space is taken up by addicts to fill Kelowna General Hospital to the brim for a year. As alarming as this is, it is hardly news. Few would argue that addiction to drugs, alcohol and other poisons costs our system dearly, but our government steadfastly refuses to do what's needed to address it. Instead, our leaders give us more of the same, trying to arrest their way out of the problem. The majority of the expense could be avoided if we simply changed our approach. Addiction should be recognized for what it is: A disease. Those who fall prey to it are willing to forfeit their possessions, steal from others, risk their freedom and even sell their own bodies to feed their habit. No amount of enforcement will change that. But medical treatment just might. The solution won't be cheap, to be sure. The BCMA estimates 600 treatment beds and 240 detox spaces will be necessary. But as much as those will cost us, surely the tab will be lower than the one we're paying now. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom