Pubdate: Tue, 06 Mar 2007
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Frank M. Archer
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n265/a10.html?322536

THE OLD WAYS OF FIGHTING ADDICTION DON'T WORK

Re: Conservative senator attacks Sullivan's drug-treatment plan, March 2

Understandably, former Vancouver undercover police officer Senator 
Gerry St. Germain views Mayor Sam Sullivan's innovative substitute 
drug addiction treatment program through the eyes of someone who 
worked on morality and drug cases. I attempted to implement a program 
similar to Sullivan's proposal more than 25 years ago when pharmacies 
were being burglarized at an alarming rate. Pharmacists were 
violently attacked by addicts seeking drugs.

Like Sullivan's proposal, most of the objections to my program were 
along the lines put forward by St. Germain. His contention that drug 
addiction is just like alcoholism, and you don't give an alcoholic 
more alcohol, reflected the feelings of many people at that time. But 
now to many people this is as ridiculous as saying that drug 
addiction is just like diabetes, and you don't give more insulin to a diabetic.

St. Germain's same-old, same-old proposals for more police and 
abstinence-based treatment programs are self-admittedly based on 
hope. But are they founded on evidence-based reality?

Frank M. Archer

Delta

Frank Archer is the former CEO of the BC Pharmacy Association
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