STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR DRUG ADDICTION

AN anti-drug rally held in Abbotsford last week and fronted by former heavy
weight boxer George Chuvalo and federal MP Randy White sported the usual
confused rhetoric about drugs and addiction.

It was a mixture of demands and accusations to government; the tone
resembling an ideological hangover from the days of the Temperance Movement
and the Prohibition, topped with a dose of AA scare tactics.

Incidentally, the misconceptions about addiction unite social conservatives
and liberals alike. Both factions seem to feel it is the humane thing to
describe what is essentially a problem of behaviour, as a disease, even
though it is not.

Liberals as much as conservatives, support coercive means of treatment. All
are oblivious to the stupidity of forcing an occasional user to confess to
a life-long debilitating "disease." All are blind to the violation of
liberty and the futility of forcing someone into rehab.

In a radio interview, MP Randy White expressed his well-meaning support for
the disease conception of addiction.

Asked to explain why proponents of the disease model of addiction refuse to
address the fact that drug addiction involves choices, values and
preferences, he refused to do so.

"Have you not made a mistake ever?" he admonished the host.

As if embarking on a life of drugs was about one unfortunate glitch. The
dangers of gathering more and more behaviours under the disease label, is
not something about which politicians or health-care specialists care to
think, despite the scary ramifications for a society already committed to
"morality lite" and to diminished personal responsibility.

One esteemed addiction researcher, Stanton Peele, is different.

In his book The Diseasing of America, Peele states that the disease
conceptions of misbehaviour are bad science, and morally and intellectually
sloppy.

"Once we treat alcoholism and addiction as diseases," writes Peele, "we
cannot rule out that anything people do but shouldn't is a disease, from
crime to excessive sexuality to procrastination."

The application of the medical disease model to addictions was developed to
"remove the stigma from these behaviours."

There is, however, no genetic marker for alcoholism or drug addiction.
Still, the misconception that these behaviours are linked to a genetic
vulnerability is aired repeatedly by the media, all in the absence of
evidence.

The rationale for using the disease model to describe addiction, even
though it is intellectually dishonest, is that medical treatment is
effective. This is also untrue.

An overview of controlled studies indicates that "treated patients do not
fare better than untreated people with the same problems."

The evaluation of one program for heroin addiction, for instance, showed a
recidivism rate of 90% soon after treatment. This is because a behavioural
problem cannot be remedied by medical intervention. Addicts are cured when
they decide to give up the habit.

Most cigarette smokers who quit give up cold turkey with no help, and there
is no indication treatment for smokers is any more effective than no
treatment.

The disease conception of addiction is a means of separating the behaviour
from the person.

Much like the flu, drugs are said to "get a hold" of you, to use Mr.
Chuvalo's words when describing his son. But an honest look is always more
productive than a clouded one, and an honest look at drug-use means we
cannot separate it from a person's values, strengths or lack thereof.

Once someone becomes involved with drugs, we explain everything they do by
saying it was because of the drug, neglecting in the process of this
circular argument to note that the source of the addiction is the person
and not the drug.

Heroin addicts are highly disposed to having social problems even before
they become addicted. And good predictors of future drug use are truancy
and smoking behaviour, indicating that certain people by virtue of their
personality characteristics or social circumstances are more at risk than
others. If you fail to hold the kid who goes astray responsible for his
actions -- then you cannot praise the kid who doesn't. That's the logic of
diminished responsibilities all round.

Once again the myths about drug use in the general population come from
what Dr. Peele calls "extremely self-dramatizing addicts who report for
treatment, and who in turn are extremely attractive to the media." Which
calls into question the wisdom of using video footage such as was used
during the rally, in which a heroin addict, described in positive personal
terms, tells about his life.

This portrays the addict as a hero, and separates the addict from his
behaviour with the protective rampart of a disease label.

Indeed, there are activist groups down town campaigning for respect for the
addict, pointing towards the degree of confusion in our thinking. Because
the more undeserved respect addicts get, the more events they attend as
"witnesses," the more they will stay addicts and the more addiction will be
glamorized.

Positive reinforcement increases rather than extinguishes behaviour.
Pavlov's dog could tell you that.

Unfortunately, the various accelerated programs school kids are exposed to
year in and year out are breeding out of them the protective effects of
personal responsibility, and the healthy disdain for addicts.

They are taught by mouthpieces of the activist industry that "It" can
happen to anyone, that they have little control and that once "diagnosed"
as an addict always an addict.

This sets in motion -- where there is already some drug use -- a
self-defeating cycle of abstinence and relapse, not to mention an overall
rise in drug-related involvement.

All in all, most teens and college students outgrow their occasional binges
and turn into responsible adults. For doing what teens and college students
do as a rite of passage, youngsters do not deserve to be labelled diseased.

It is plain stupid.

The paranoia of the temperance and the prohibition era, which has
culminated in AA disease dogma needs to be replaced with an emphasis on
personal, parental and community power.