Pubdate: Wed, 31 May Jun 2006 Source: Esquimalt News (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 Esquimalt News Contact: http://www.esquimaltnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1290 Author: Don Descoteau, Esquimalt News DRUG POLICY DEBATED Symposium aims to find solutions Steve McDougall remembers well having to be literally "scraped off the floor of a divy little apartment on Wark Street" before he could get on the road to recovery from heroin addiction. He considers himself lucky to have a caring family who were able to help him stay on the road to recovery and place him in a long-term detox facility, but said many people don't have that luxury. The system in many instances, is failing them, he said. "The state of treatment - even the state of availability of detox - are pretty close to criminal," McDougall said. "The fact that someone who wants to get clean has to wait three weeks to get a bed - so much can happen in three weeks." McDougall is a member of a new community coalition known as Voices of Substance. He'll be among the panelists taking part in a day-long symposium hosted this Friday entitled The Costs of Doing Nothing: Looking Beyond our Current Approaches to Substance Use. Guest speakers from the health care, police, business and sex trade sectors will trade viewpoints with a selection of panelists from equally varied groups to get a sense of the current state of treatment and what direction could be taken to improve the situation. A key point in staging the symposium, said McDougall, is that standing still is not an option when it comes to helping substance abusers in Greater Victoria get healthy. "The whole thing about harm reduction is that you can't save a dead addict. You can't offer them recovery," he said. McDougall said from his perspective, having healthy choices available for drug or alcohol addicted individuals is the key to healing. A problem in past has been a "misdirection of resources," with not enough emphasis on working with addicted individuals to find out what they need. "So much money would be saved by putting people through treatment rather than putting them in jail," he said. "I don't think I would have had a chance at recovery had I not been in a treatment place that was longer than 28 days." VOS member Connie Carter, a University of Victoria doctoral candidate and former administrator for addictions research, said the goal of the seminar is to spark dialogue in the community on various fronts. Not only do the health care, academic and police communities need to provide input on policy making, the people most likely to benefit from any changes need to be involved as well. "We can't develop social policy without input from the people who will be affected by that social policy," she said. "I'm hoping we can all come together and see each other's perspectives in a new light. Education can change people." The symposium runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Ambrosia Catering and Events Centre, 638 Fisgard St. For more information, call 361-050 or go to voicesofsubstance.ca. - --- MAP posted-by: Steve Heath