SALOME A NEW WAY OUT FOR ADDICTS

/John Reynolds is a senior strategic advisor to law firm Lang Michener
in Vancouver and a member of the Inner Change Foundation board. He
served as a Member of Parliament for more than 13 years -- including
as Leader of the Opposition. He has served the B.C. legislature as an
MLA, minister of environment and Speaker. More recently, he co-chaired
the Conservative Party's successful campaign in 2006./

One of the reasons I am a proud supporter of Vancouver's Inner Change
Foundation and research like the Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid
Medication Effectiveness (SALOME) is because our health-care system
needs to offer a wider array of effective treatment options for some
of our most vulnerable citizens suffering from chronic drug addiction.

By providing a new option that stabilizes addicts, transitions to
legal oral medication and offers psycho-social treatment to address
the underlying causes of addiction, SALOME represents hope and
something average-thinking people can participate in to help our
neighbours in the Downtown Eastside and beyond.

It is about time that we end the stigma around addiction and start
thinking about this as treatable illness instead of a moral failing.
SALOME is a client-centred, integrative treatment model.

The federal and provincial governments should be applauded for
supporting this research -- as should the financial donors from the
private sector that are coming forward through Inner Change.

SALOME is more treatment than harm reduction. It offers a new way out
for addicts and addresses root causes while reducing crime and profits
of organized crime at the same time. That makes sense to me.

As someone who loves Vancouver and Canada so much, it causes me great
concern to think that people from all walks of life are killing their
souls to buy these drugs every hour of every day in our city.

Taxpayers also pay a price for this carnage while gangs reap
substantial financial rewards. Consider that a market of 1,000 heroin
users can generate more than $30,000 a day in revenue for a drug
dealer. In two short years, that is $25 million -- tax free. No red
tape. No consumer protection.

On the other hand, 1,000 addicts participating in legal substitution
treatment amounts to a profit of zero for organized crime -- not to
mention lower court costs, fewer break-ins, less prostitution, shorter
emergency-room waits and increased productivity from recovering addicts.

Decades ago, people diagnosed with cancer were confronted with a very
limited number of treatment options. Today, thanks to the advances of
medical research, cancer patients are able to choose from a much wider
array of choices.

If the same cancer patient decades ago wanted to stop smoking, it was
generally done cold-turkey. Today, that same tobacco addict can choose
among a pack of gum, the patch or many other alternatives.

If you were diagnosed with a drug addiction decades ago, you were also
lucky to have more than one treatment option. If it was heroin you
were addicted to, your options were withdrawal, methadone or jail. The
problem is that this situation remains much the same today.

If we can show this innovative addiction-research treatment works, why
wouldn't we move towards this kind of option? If we can offer expanded
treatment options for so many other health conditions, why not
addiction, too?

Anything that thinking people can do to help people get rid of that
illness is a good idea. This is a non-partisan thing. This is about
people helping people.

Let's hope with advances like SALOME it won't take another decade for
people with drug addiction to have another exit to choose from.