Pubdate: Sat, 03 Nov 2012
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Evan Wood
Note: Evan Wood is a professor of medicine at UBC, where he holds the 
university's Canada Research Chair in Inner City Medicine.

ADVANCEMENTS IN ADDICTION TREATMENT BYPASS CANADA

Canadians battling alcohol and drug addictions have a tough road 
ahead. Finding treatment is difficult. For those who are able to get 
into a treatment program, care is often substandard and lacks the 
full benefit of modern medicine.

The new long- acting formulation of a drug called naltrexone is a 
perfect example of how Canada is playing catchup in the world of 
addiction treatment.

The drug, which has been marketed in the U. S. under the trade name 
Vivitrol, is a drug that takes advantage of modern advancements in 
pharmaceutical development enabling an extended-release preparation 
that allows the drug to be slowly released into the body over the 
course of a month.

Vivitrol is proven effective. As an opioid antagonist, Vivitrol 
reduces the rewarding effects of alcohol and completely blocks the 
effects of opioids like heroin for up to 30 days.

In the first large randomized trial published in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association, Vivitrol reduced heavy drinking in 
alcoholics by 25 per cent. In a subsequent study published in the 
British Medical Journal The Lancet, 90 per cent of heroin addicts 
prescribed Vivitrol became abstinent compared to 35 per cent of 
patients injected with a placebo.

In a study published earlier this year, which considered the most 
down- and-out population of addicts using both methamphetamine and 
heroin and published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the drug 
more than doubled the rate at which patients became drug free.

Aside from its substantial benefits in alcohol treatment, the drug 
has huge health care cost savings and public health implications in 
Canada where untreated heroin addiction and addiction to prescription 
opioid drugs remain serious public health concerns.

Unfortunately, just as the Canadian federal government prepares to 
spend billions on new "tough on drugs" criminal justice measures that 
will ensnare untold alcohol and drug- addicted individuals, this 
remarkable addiction treatment advancement remains unavailable in Canada.

This is ironic given that the government's lack of support for proven 
public health measures, such as providing sterile syringes to 
intravenous drug users, has been based on the argument that addiction 
treatment should be provided instead.

Unfortunately, recent reports have suggested that Canada's anti-drug 
strategy renewal will soon see extensive cuts to Health Canada's 
addiction treatment budget while funding for law enforcement 
activities will be redoubled.

Sadly, the high rates of untreated alcohol and drug addiction in 
Canada are a casualty of this long-standing allocation of resources 
and it appears that the federal government is set to repeat past mistakes.

Instead, the government could make great strides in improving 
community health and safety by making the modernization of Canada's 
approach to addiction medicine a centrepiece of its new drug strategy.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom