RESOURCES LACKING

On June 17, you published a letter regarding local homeless drug users
in which A.N. Brown wrote: "Those that really need the help should be
in some monitored group home where they can receive the medical help
they need and are safe from the dregs that prey on them." Bravo.

I wish to agree wholeheartedly. That is exactly where many of these
people should be, in treatment centers.

The unfortunate truth is that B.C. has desperately insufficient
resources for dealing with this problem. For starters no one gets to
treatment without going to detox first. Detox takes a matter of days
whereas comprehensive treatment takes weeks just to make a good start.

There are 1,038 drug and alcohol rehab beds in all of B.C. of which
about 600 are detox beds and 400 are treatment beds.

Assuming an average of two weeks of detox and six weeks of treatment,
our system is capable of detoxing four times more people than it's
capable of treating.

That means out of four people who make a decision to get help and get
straight, only one will find a treatment bed available after detox.
The other three will walk out of detox with no support to stay
straight and no tools to support their own sobriety. They typically
end up right back where they started. The net result is often a
complete waste of resources.

In 2003 the Vancouver Coastal Health authority estimated that there
were 20-25,000 injection drug users residing in B.C. I want to be
very clear that this figure does not include countless others who use
highly addictive drugs without using needles. I've had a hard time
finding a more comprehensive figure but we know the situation has not
improved since 2003. It's getting worse, so these figures will serve
to illustrate my point.

The 400 available treatment beds can start the rehabilitation process
for about 4000 users annually. It would take more than five years
just to treat B.C.'s injection drug users alone. Who knows how long
to deal with the remaining addicts who smoke, eat, snort and drink
their substance of choice.

I understand that many people feel resentment that our tax dollars
should have to be applied to cleaning up the mess of addiction. The
truth is that, regardless of who made the mess, we are all living with
it. Many more of us than some are willing to admit are vulnerable to
addiction. No one wants to be addicted to meth or heroin. No one
believed it would take them down when they started. Those were errors
in judgement made long ago, decisions that were supported by the
predators who make their living peddling poison. There are 600 known
organized crime groups operating in Canada, with 128 in B.C. alone.

We need more treatment beds and more qualified treatment
professionals. We need to be effectively prosecuting the sellers and
stop persecuting the users.

Every dollar spent on the incarceration of drug users is a waste of
resources that could be redirected to treatment. There is no
rehabilitation in our prison system, just a higher price to pay for
staying high.

So to A.N. Brown, and other like-minded individuals, it's all well and
good to suggest that those who are down and out ought to get help. We
just have to be willing to dole out our tax money to ensure
sufficient, appropriate help is available.

SAM ZAHARIA