Time to fight the illness

Instead of looking the other way, we must look for ways to address the issue of drugs in our society and to heal the addict, once and for all.

Preservation and distribution of natural resources, famine and hunger are some of the biggest challenges for policy makers at the beginning of this century. We are living in a world where human suffering seems of little importance and is often ignored. I believe that there are many in the world that feel the need for change, but the task seems so far beyond their capabilities that they give up before they begin.

In our time, policies of management of famine, diseases and ignorance are determined by political lobbies. On our TV screens one person's tragedy becomes another's evening entertainment.

We have lost our sense of values and perspective. We fight monopolies of software but allow the monopoly of genetically modified food to continue unabated. It is about to become an unimaginable gold mine for those who hold the rights to produce it, and eventually these same companies could even dictate who will eat and who will starve.

Today, overwhelmed by information, mankind is being desensitised to suffering and we risk losing the basic instincts of humanity and care. Imagine a collage where pictures of children in Africa silently dying of starvation blend into the mainly unseen images of drug dependent children in London and Paris searching with needles in each others necks, feet or genitals for remaining functional veins to achieve temporary relief from their pain, knowingly gambling with Hepatitis, HIV and overdose. The images blur into one, while the ink of despair drips constantly, leaving spots on our streets and our conscience.

In the '60s Bob Dylan asked us all "How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?" I have seen presidents and prime ministers all over the world declaring war on drugs. And I have seen all of them defeated. Maybe because they are fighting the ill. It's time to fight the illness.

Science versus the status quo

Muddled thinking when it comes to the treatment of addiction is a recipe for disaster

The treatment of opiate dependency is not being judged on purely scientific grounds. In science, when you propose a new theory it remains a theory until it is proven by academic rules. Once proven, it is accepted and becomes 'the new approach'.

In medicine, this means that there aren't 20 different ways to perform open heart surgery. There's one technique that is accepted as better than others. Some small details of the technique might be different from one doctor to another, depending on the surgeon's skills, but it is basically the same technique that is taught in medical schools everywhere.  We don't treat pneumonia differently in Israel or England. That is the value of science. Once something is proven better than something else, more effective for the patient, it is accepted.

Strangely though, when it comes to treating opiate dependency, the opposite is true. There is a range of 'valid' approaches and wherever you go, experts on drug addiction claim there is room for different techniques. And there are lots, from Methadone and Subutex maintenance to painful 'detox' and long term psychotherapy, among others. But why are there so many? Could it be because most, if not all, are less then effective?

It seems that for all science's importance to medicine and mankind, its rules can be ignored if the issue is addiction or dependency. In this field there are different standards. The treatments of the 'mainstream' are dictated by policy makers, not by doctors or scientific studies.

A technique to reverse opiate dependency, such as ANR, could be the best technique in the world in terms of safety and effectiveness. But if requires opening modern hospitals to drug addicts, replacing psychologists and psychiatrists with anesthestists, and closing Methadone clinics; the experts, those who control the market today, will claim that the problem is not about reversing the dependency, but about social rehabilitation.

And yet the rehabilitation phase has nothing to do with the techniques governing the reversal of dependency and craving. In any case, not all patients need social rehabilitation.

But by mixing it all together - the medical, psychological and social aspects of addiction - policy makers disinterested in change can deny and disregard the medical achievements of techniques such as ANR and maintain the status quo.

But if the status quo, with its existing range of treatment options, is so marvellous, why are over 90% of opiate dependent patients failing to apply for any kind of treatment? And why the families of those patients so helpless?

Maybe for those policy makers and experts of this field, as Bob Dylan once said,
The Answer Is Blowin' In The Wind...