Article content The process of overcoming drug addiction often begins involuntarily. That shouldn’t be surprising given that one of the core diagnostic features of addiction is a loss of control over harmful behaviour. Canada’s presents reasons why people initiated recovery from addiction.
The list includes severe consequences involving physical health (46 per cent), mental health (68 per cent), relationships (65 per cent), employment (37 per cent) and conflict with the law (17 per cent). Too often, people only begin the process of change when they have reached their proverbial “rock bottom.” And yet, when they are well supported, results of interventions are extremely positive.
Over three quarters of heavy drinkers who require a liver transplant following surgery. My team’s research on Vancouver’s and confirmed that people with severe drug addictions are able to transform their lives away from substance use and crime. Employment-related interventions exist for many groups, such as physicians, lawyers, and airplane pilots.
Five-year followup studies have zero positive drug tests. The standard of care that guides these effective interventions involves intensive psychosocial care and abstinence from drugs. Involuntary interventions have been used increasingly in British Columbia, but with no long-term benefit to individuals or their communities.
Between 2008 and 2017 the number of people in B.C. who were involuntarily hospitalized due to a substance use disorder rose about 2.
5 times. Over the same time period, the proportion of B.C.
’s custody population that had been diagnosed with a substance use disorder increased from 38 per cent to 50 per cent, while the average number of prior convictions nearly doubled, primarily involving crimes of theft. Rather than serving to initiate effective long-term addiction care, involuntary interventions in B.C.
are often expensive punctuation marks in a brutal revolving door. After a three-week stay at St. Paul’s Hospital for addiction and other mental illnesses, nearly one in five patients were discharged to no fixed address.
Unsurprisingly, these individuals were at very high risk for . Leaders don’t have the luxury of deliberating whether or not to intervene. Instead, the urgent questions involve how best to intervene and how to prevent the need for involuntary care in the first place.
To address these questions we need to make far greater use of evidence detailing needs in the population and evidence of effective ways of helping. Peer-reviewed research confirms that thousands of people are repeatedly hospitalized and . Roughly two-thirds of the people who experienced drug poisonings in B.
C. . Poisoning is now the leading cause of death among youth in B.
C., and 66 per cent were , which administers foster care, at some point. The risk for addiction is powerfully related to one’s relationships and experience of meaning in life.
Having meaningful work is itself powerfully protective against addiction. And yet, eight years into a declared public health emergency, B.C.
has no plan to promote re-employment, support transitions into healthy housing, or improve the transition to adulthood among high-risk youth. Instead, the province has focused almost entirely on pharmaceuticals, decriminalizing drug possession, and providing places for socially isolated people to use drugs. was never on their side.
The government has turned a deaf ear to the metastasizing harms caused by their policies, which include theft, drug trafficking, homelessness, violence, suicide, drug poisoning, business closures, drug diversion, and despair. B.C.
’s long nightmare of toxic policies will only end when public services are organized to achieve the same outcomes as effective private programs. That will require the development of therapeutic communities, supported employment and education, dispersed supported housing, enforcement against trafficking and money laundering, and transparent accountability to the public. All of these are achievable.
With a provincial election mere weeks away I encourage voters to ask candidates how they plan to address our addiction crisis, and how we’ll know if they’re making progress..
