Pubdate: Mon, 18 Mar 2013
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry
Page: A4

IDEOLOGICAL BIAS REIGNS IN ADDICTION DEBATE

Methinks provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall does protest too 
much in his Sunday letter to our newspaper about my views on 
effective drug treatment, or the lack of it, in this province.

I mean if, as Kendall says, the science really is "very clear" that 
both harm-reduction and abstinence-based treatments work, why does 
Victoria spend so much time, energy and money on the one as compared 
with the other?

Besides, is it not the B.C. health authorities who, with their 
obvious emphasis on keeping addicts on methadone, continue to fuel 
what Kendall calls "the not very helpful false dichotomy between 
different modes of evidence-based addictions interventions"?

In other words, why are the taxpayer-funded authorities so focused on 
harm-reduction methods (including providing free needles, crack kits 
and hash pipes) that they reject funding for abstinence-based 
recovery programs, denying addicts a scientifically-supported treatment option?

I'm not the only one asking this. Abbotsford-Mission MLA Randy Hawes, 
whose son beat his drug habit through an abstinence-based program, 
says it was one of the issues that frustrated him and other Liberal 
MLAs who last fall questioned the authorities about it, through the 
health minister's office.

The MLA committee learned residential treatment beds funded by health 
authorities were almost exclusively for harm-reduction patients 
taking methadone, a controversial substitute for heroin and other 
opiates. In fact, the government was spending more than $40 million 
annually on methadone alone.

"Treatment and recovery facilities operating on an abstinence basis 
appear to be philosophically rejected for funding," Hawes said, 
adding the committee also learned there appeared to be no tracking of 
patients leaving public-health-funded treatment and no accountability 
for the money spent.

Hawes said the committee - including West Vancouver-Sea to Sky MLA 
Joan McIntyre and Vancouver-Fraserview MLA Kash Heed - found a 
consistent pattern across B.C.

"Non-funded abstinence-based facilities struggled with finances, but 
enjoyed significant success," Hawes said. "Funded facilities were 
reluctant to discuss their core beliefs, but clearly many were not 
supportive of the harm-reduction model. They spoke of threatened 
funding loss by the health authorities, should they speak publicly in 
non-support of the methadone program."

Muzzling those who favour abstinence-based treatment, Dr. Kendall? 
Could this be happening in the B.C. health system, despite the fact 
that, according to the science, both abstinence-based and 
harm-reduction interventions are effective?

Ideological bias has clearly come into play. Hawes said the committee 
visited the WelcomeHome treatment centre in Surrey which, despite 
having an "astounding" abstinence-based program, receives no support 
from the Fraser Health Authority.

"The ministry and the health authorities continue to claim that they 
support a variety of treatment modalities, including abstinence," he 
said. "However, all of the evidence at the ground level shows this to 
be not the case."

Hawes, a three-term MLA who isn't running again, said addictions 
treatment is one of a number of issues on which he thinks the current 
Liberal regime hasn't done the right thing: "To be blunt, in my view, 
we've been campaigning for two years, we haven't been governing."

The science on that, at least, is very clear.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom