[Music]
does anyone think that Canadian drug
policy is working I don't we create
compassionate policies and consider
ourself one of the most progressive
countries in the world and we probably
are the problem is that our progressive
approach is actually costing us lives
Canadian lives that could be saved it's
time to reimagine how we do addiction
treatment in Canada because there is a
better way forward
since 2016 we've lost over 12,000
Canadians to addiction and overdose in
BC you're 17 times more likely to die of
an overdose than by a homicide in the
past four years we've been losing over
four people a day in this province and I
don't think that's good enough somewhere
along the line we just started accepting
that when people are down they're not
going to get back up you see in BC 90%
of all funding goes towards harm
reduction things like substitute
medications clean needles safe injection
sites and other policy prescriptions
that are designed to keep people alive
and they have merit they're good they do
work my problems with the funding
discrepancy it's the only ten percent of
all funds go towards actual
rehabilitation the one thing that can
get people to living their best lives
once again in Canada we have socialized
medicine I like it most people like it
but somehow addiction is the only fatal
disease whereby treatment isn't
guaranteed if you're extremely poor you
can get put on a waitlist for a
government-funded bed a waitlist that
might last you multiple months long and
never guarantee you a place in the
center if you have money or your
family's wealthy they can send you to a
private treatment center a private rehab
one of them
that dots are dotted across our country
and I'm fine with that if you can pay
your Freight we should accept people
paying their Freight the problem is that
the majority of Canadians end up
somewhere in the middle families who
have paid taxes their entire lives are
put into a difficult position they need
to help their family member but they
can't really afford it they're asked to
cash in their rsps take out a second
mortgage on their house if they own a
house or take on high interest loans all
they want to do is save their loved one
and they often end up mortgaging their
future clearly a health care matter the
addiction file has been steadily removed
from the Ministry of Health new
ministries of mental health and
addiction have been popping up in all
the provinces sounds good doesn't it
here's the problem the Ministry of
Health and BC is funded to the tune of
20 billion dollars a year twenty billion
is in twenty thousand million dollars a
year what about the Ministry of Mental
Health and Addiction seventy million
dollars a year
addiction is drastically underfunded but
here's the thing
it's not actually cheaper funding harm
reduction than it is funding treatment
and I have a dirty little secret for you
treatment can actually pay for itself
when it's prioritized money is too often
the decider about whether people get
help or not money is too often the
decider about whether people get better
addiction costs a lot of money okay
in Canada addiction costs us about 40
billion dollars a year 15 billion - lost
productivity alone another 11 billion
healthcare costs tack on another nine
for criminal justice no matter how you
look at it this is an expensive problem
yeah each addict costs Canada about
forty thousand dollars a year yet you
can pay to send someone to treatment for
a few months for as little as six to ten
thousand the problem the government is
only willing to pay for people if they
qualify for social assistance you have
to be extremely poor and for people
they're willing to pay for they only pay
$40 a day now since I have you hostage
here
want to ask the audience a question how
much does your life cost you a day me
too
$40 a day doesn't get us very far the
reality is that the level of care that
places are able to provide for the rate
that the government is willing to pay
adds up to only board and housing
getting paid you can cover food but you
can't cover any real programming and
that's the problem
in Canada the mean income is about
$50,000 a year
your average worker will end up paying
about 10,000 in taxes on that so for
every person we can put through
treatment and return to productivity
they will be putting ten thousand
dollars a year into government coffers
but then you add in the fact that they
no longer cost the government forty
thousand dollars at the snap of a finger
you have a fifty thousand dollar swing
in the right direction for every one
person we can put through treatment and
get them to stay sober and working for
20 years you have a million dollar swing
in the right direction so here's the
reality if we can have one out of a
hundred people who we put through
treatment stay sober for 20 years
treatment pays for itself right now the
system we're running does not work we
are hemorrhaging money
families are hurting death is all too
common and addicts are staying addicted
access to treatment needs to be
guaranteed for everyone and that's the
compassionate approach all of us know
about the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver
it's horrible there are people living in
abject squalor down there it's
completely horrific the reality is using
harm reduction exclusively is not
working we know that we see that there's
human suffering on a grand scale
happening our addiction system is at a
breaking point everyone knows it but no
one wants to talk about it now I want to
take you across the Atlantic let's look
at Switzerland they had the same
addiction policies as all the other
Western countries for a long time zero
tolerance drug laws minimal access to
treatment by the 70s and 80s they had
some of the worst addiction rates in the
world
disease was through the roof this sound
familiar open-air drug
was happening everywhere in the 80s they
got fed up with it they introduced a new
policy prescription called the three
pillars approach number one they went
with prevention all of us recognized
that the best way to deal with the
long-term implications of addiction is
to actually prevent addiction from
happening in the first place
logical stuff of course number two
therapy they decided then and there that
access to treatment would be available
for everyone who needed it free of
charge covered by the state logical and
number three enforcement utilized in a
non-punitive fashion it was the
mechanism to get people back to pillar
number two therapy the whole it was a
cycle now in the 90s they introduced a
new pillar risk reduction what we what
we call harm reduction any rational
person would recognize that we're not
just gonna magically make everyone who
does drugs stop not everyone who does
drugs is going to magically get better
we need to recognize that now for people
who can't or won't stop restoration of
dignity needs to be the priority we want
to we want to allow them to avoid living
a life of crime we want them to get back
on their feet
now obviously harm reduction is a last
resort it's not ideal we all know that
but it's necessary in some cases now for
them instead of just producing and
providing substitute drugs they
recognized that there were other needs
there was a need for housing they hooked
people up with employers so people could
get jobs again as I said dignity became
the key now they came to an amazing
realization okay
lost productivity was not due to drug
use alone it had just as much to do with
the amount of effort and hustle people
had to do to get the drugs to feel their
addiction in the first place when you
remove that amazing things happen now
this policy was only rolled out in
certain towns and Canton's in
Switzerland initially in 2008 they had a
referendum
the referendum was about rolling this
around countrywide it passed with 68%
support has anything in Canada ever
passed a 68% support it's an
overwhelming mandate now of course there
will always be opposition to change
that's just a reality but in the end
good policy prescriptions will win the
day now in Canada I think it's time for
us to recognize that our
one-size-fits-all policy is not working
our overuse of harm reduction is
actually robbing people of the chance to
get the treatment they need it's also
diluting the resources available to the
people who actually need harm reduction
in the first place
we need to be able to put more money
into the housing and allow them to get
jobs whatever they can do if it's
prioritized treatment can pay for itself
but we really need to reimagine how
we're doing it we need to stop turning a
blind eye to the suffering that's
happened around happening around us
productivity and a restoration of
productivity needs to be made a key
factor we need to be willing to leverage
the criminal justice system to get
people the help they need and the help
they need is treatment in a lot of cases
we're finally starting to recognize that
addiction is a disease addiction is not
a moral failing and I think it's time
for the Ministry of Health to start
treating addiction as it does any other
health care issue it's a health care
crisis we need a compassionate approach
not just because of the death and
suffering but because economically it
makes sense maybe it's time for a Swiss
model in Canada thank you
you