MAYOR'S SCHEME HAS HALLMARKS OF A SCAM

Re: Mayor proposes 'revolutionary' plan for addicts, Jan. 22

When telemarketers call or television shopping hosts promote their
"revolutionary" new product to cure one's ills, we are often warned
by consumer advocates to remind ourselves "if it sounds too good to
be true, it probably is". Sam Sullivan refers to his new plan to
address drug addiction and mental illness as "revolutionary" and that
it will ". . . eliminate most of Vancouver's problems with
homelessness, panhandling and drug-dealing". His plan has all of the
hallmarks of a telemarketing scam because, as reported in the Sun, he
has shied away from giving specific details of how this plan is to
work, but we are expected to trust his promises of what it can do.

There are no details on which legal alternatives to street drugs are
to be prescribed to addicts or how these residents are to be reliably
monitored or followed up. Sullivan has no expertise, training or
experience working with the mentally ill or substance abusers, so it
pushes the limits of credulity that he can devise a plan in eight
months, release few details so experts can determine what the plan
actually does, and then forge straight ahead to ask the federal
government for exemptions for dangerous drugs so he can implement it
without due care. This is simply irresponsible. I wonder if this plan
is a genuine attempt to actually help substance abusers and the
mentally ill or is a means to provide a "medical" excuse to simply
sweep them off the street into institutions far away from Olympic
venues. Caveat emptor.

Kerry L. Jang

Professor

Department of Psychiatry University of B.C.