Pubdate: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2008 The Province Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Alan Ferguson UBC's 'EXPERTS' ON ADDICTION POLICY ARE ALL SINGING THE SAME OLD TUNE The wise and the good at UBC are sending into our humble midst certain luminaries to broaden our horizons in matters of drug policy. The first in a series of weekly forums, organized by the university "to increase public dialogue about the escalating problem of drug use," took place yesterday. This should be splendid news. UBC, a world centre of excellence, is surely a bubbling cauldron of creative ideas well suited to addressing the misery of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. So who are these worthies the university has lined up for our edification? According to Stephen Owen, one-time Liberal MP and now UBC vice-president for community relations, they represent "a wide spectrum of perspectives and research knowledge." But a quick perusal of the marquee names will temper any rash expectations of original thinking. They include former Vancouver mayors Philip Owen and Larry Campbell, who for years have propped up the tottering columns of the Four Pillars approach, with its emphasis on "harm reduction." The university's own contribution to the forum is Richard Mathias, professor in the faculty of medicine and also a believer in giving addicts the drugs they need to lessen the harm they do themselves and others. And there's a representative from UVic's Centre for Addictions Research, one of whose recent projects was tellingly titled: "Feasibility study for supervised drug consumption options in Victoria." So what happened to the promised "wide spectrum" of ideas? Seems to me UBC is merely lending its prestigious imprimatur to the drug-policy orthodoxy of the day. It's fortifying a fifth pillar -- the pillar of political correctness. There's nothing sinister about Four Pillars. It's a compassionate ideology that views addiction as a health problem, not a criminal matter. But its academic advocates tend to be a self-regarding lot, with no patience for heretics who dare to whisper abstinence as an alternative approach to addiction. Their resumes, flush with the fruits of forays into needle-strewn alleys, list learned papers "proving" that a "public health" approach to addiction is working. But what we see in the Downtown Eastside tells a different story. For example, after six years of "public health" initiatives, we were told last week a dangerous superbug is rampaging through the drug community. Given the reality, you can't blame people for being skeptical about the diversion of health dollars to mopping the fevered brows of addicts as they ready a clean needle for their next fix. Not when single mothers with diabetic kids have to dig into their meagre resources to pay for medical supplies. Not when elderly patients writhe in pain because of surgeries endlessly postponed. Not when the one thing we never hear from the so-called addiction experts is the kind of advice we can understand: "Once you've decided to quit, we'll do everything in our power to help." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek