Pubdate: Tue, 23 Apr 2013
Source: Maple Ridge Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc
Contact:  http://www.mrtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1372
Author: Randy Hawes
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n154/a03.html

ADDICTIONS TREATED WITH LITTLE PROGRESS

Dear Editor,

Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall's overall tone [Harm reduction
one route of many, April 2 Letters, TIMES] infers that we are making
great progress in addictions treatment, and that we should somehow
celebrate an increase in those on methadone from 8,000 to 14,000 over
the past eight years.

Far from making any progress, I believe we have an addictions crisis
in B.C., and the huge increase in methadone users should be a sign of
failure.

Last year, a small MLA group heard from a number of abstinence-based
residential treatment providers that they were having great difficulty
with funding. None were recognized or funded through the health
authorities, because their regimen was focused solely on abstinence
and they do not countenance methadone or administer it.

While there is no policy prohibiting funding abstinence programs, Dr.
Kendall knows or ought to know that there is a philosophical aversion
within the health authorities to anything but a?oharm
reduction.a??

We determined that the residential beds that are funded are harm
reduction-based, and the maximum residential stay appears to be 60
days. Most are 30 days or less, after which time the addicts are
discharged. Most have nowhere to go but back to their previous
environment. Relapse is almost certain.

We asked for the success rates for treatment of addictions through the
health authorities, and it became clear that there is no established
tracking system, so it is impossible to gauge success or to provide
accountability for the significant dollars spent on the harm-reduction
model.

We are also informed that there have been several drugstores caught
offering kickbacks to treatment facilities and to addicts for the
referral of methadone patients.

The dispensing of methadone has become a lucrative business with more
than $40 million spent annually on this drug alone. Somehow Dr.
Kendall insinuates that this should be a source of pride.

Methadone is a highly addictive drug, and substituting methadone for
heroin in hugely increasing numbers can hardly be seen as a successful
addictions strategy.

Abstinence counsellors all over B.C. believe that the use of methadone
should be a last resort and only employed when attempts at kicking an
opiate addiction through abstinence have failed. They know that
successful long-term recovery requires much longer residential therapy
which often forces painful self-examination.

Education and life-skills training that can lead to addicts becoming
productive members of society are keys to successful recovery.

Leaving residential treatment after 30 days with a methadone addiction
is not successful treatment.

When Dr. Kendall speaks of international clinical research and 
practice-based experience, I suspect he has little or no experience 
working first hand with those in addiction. This is reinforced by his 
reference to a?oHealthy Minds, Healthy People: a Ten Year Plan to 
Address Mental Health and Substance Use in British Columbia.a?? This 
online document provides extremely thin gruel, indeed, for those who 
work in the addictions field, and absolutely no concrete hope for those 
addicts being recycled through a failing system.

Instead of bureaucratic spin and defensiveness, real funding for a
broad spectrum of treatment and recovery will lead real progress in
combatting the addictions crisis. Until then, we can look forward to
ever-increasing numbers of methadone addicts and more bureaucratic
bumph. What a shame.

Randy Hawes, retiring MLA
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MAP posted-by: Matt