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