DEAD ADDICTS ARE BEYOND TREATMENT

Re: 50 Years Of Drug Addiction, Susan Martinuk, July 10.

Susan Martinuk's polemic against harm reduction and maintenance
treatment illustrates her failure to recognize the complexity and
systemic nature of problems in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. This
community's issues have as much to do with poverty, housing, mental
illness and legacies of colonialism (e.g., continuing fallout from
residential schools) as they have to do with illegal drugs. Harm
reduction programs are not magic bullets, but they do help keep
people alive. This is important, as addiction treatment does not have
much success with corpses.

Furthermore, treatment can take many forms. Providing tobacco smokers
nicotine in chewing gum or skin patches is recognized as one of the
most effective treatments to help overcome nicotine dependence.
Vancouver's heroin prescription trial operates on exactly the same principle.

Gillian Maxwell, chairwoman, Keeping the Door Open: Dialogues on Drug
Use, Vancouver.