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