Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2008
Source: Abbotsford News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 Abbotsford News
Contact:  http://www.abbynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1155
Author: Nicole Pankratz

SOCIETY CONCERNED ABOUT THE WRONG DRUGS

Editor, The News:

Spring is about rebirth. About new beginnings. And this year, it 
couldn't come too soon because as a society, we really need to let go 
of some of our old ways and start over, especially when it comes to 
gathering and interpreting information about drugs.

Not only is a great deal of misinformation being touted as fact these 
days but the focus of both policy and media attention seems to be on 
the wrong substances and issues altogether.

Part of the problem is simply bad habits. It's a habit, for example, 
for most people to talk about "drugs and alcohol," a term that 
falsely implies that alcohol is different from a drug.

* Fact 1: Alcohol (ethanol) is a drug.

* Fact 2: Tobacco (nicotine) is a drug. A drug is a chemical compound 
found in a plant or made in a laboratory that affects activity in the 
brain or the body.

It's also a bad habit to cluck our tongues at crystal meth and other 
illicit drugs that are supposedly "ravaging the neighbourhood."

* Fact 3: Only a handful of people has ever even tried crystal meth. 
(About seven per cent of the general population has used 
amphetamine-type stimulants - meth, ecstasy, speed and so on - in 
their lifetime. Approximately one per cent has used one of more of 
these drugs in the last 12 months.) Yes, it's popular among certain 
sub-populations but it's certainly not ripping through playgrounds 
the way some media sources would have you believe.

While we're on the subject of low prevalence, only two per cent of 
the population has ever used heroin. What's more, heroin use is on 
the decline in Canada while misuse of prescription drugs (or 
"medicine," as we like to call it) is on the rise.

* Fact 4: The real culprits - the drugs that are legitimately scary - 
are the legal ones: tobacco and alcohol.

When it comes to costs to society, smoking and risky drinking top the 
charts. B.C. boasts the lowest smoking rate in Canada at around 15 
per cent, but there are still enormous costs attached to regular tobacco use.

An employee who smokes, for example, costs his or her employer an 
estimated $3,000 per year in health care costs, absenteeism, 
presenteeism and so on. And more than 47,000 Canadians die of 
smoking-related diseases every year - but not before making full use 
of the health care system.

As for drinking, B.C. spends more than $2.2 billion a year on 
alcohol-related costs. The costs associated with all illicit drugs 
put together are nowhere near that high.

Consider it this way: In 2005, almost 28,000 hospitalizations in B.C. 
were attributable to tobacco and nearly 15,000 hospitalizations were 
attributable to alcohol. To compare, fewer than 5,000 
hospitalizations were related to illicit drug use.

Yet tackling the illicit drug problem is what many public figures and 
people in general seem to worry about.

We identify and vilify some drugs, and we misidentify and shrug our 
shoulders at others, even though the evidence clearly shows our 
current habits are causing harm to ourselves and others.

Why is this? Because some drugs are more outwardly gruesome or more 
in-your-face than others. And, presumably, because policy makers, the 
media and the public aren't sure where to find factual information.

In an attempt to rectify this problem the Centre for Addictions 
Research of BC has added a reader-friendly statistics section to its 
website (www.carbc.ca).

With any luck, by next spring, we'll be over our bad habits and 
discussions will be based more on fact than fiction.

Nicole Pankratz, Centre for Addictions Research, UVic
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom