Portland's Solution to Homelessness

So much for praising Portland to the rafters: "Portland's homeless problem may seem less pressing, but that’s largely because ... Portland locks a large portion of its homeless problem in jail."

Such a solution for 'managing' people without housing is decidedly un-Canadian.

Recommend this post

Drugs to Edit Memory

Yet another discovery which sounds an alarm for the future health of cynicism among we plebes.

Suppose scientists could erase certain memories by tinkering with a single substance in the brain [which] could make you forget a chronic fear, a traumatic loss, even a bad habit.

Researchers in Brooklyn have recently accomplished comparable feats, with a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory, like emotional associations, spatial knowledge or motor skills.

The drug blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently needs to retain much of its learned information. And if enhanced, the substance could help ward off dementias and other memory problems....

The influx of money, talent and technology means that scientists are at last finding real answers about the brain — and raising questions, both scientific and ethical, more quickly than anyone can answer them.

Millions of people might be tempted to erase a severely painful memory, for instance — but what if, in the process, they lost other, personally important memories that were somehow related? Would a treatment that “cleared” the learned habits of addiction only tempt people to experiment more widely?

And perhaps even more important, when scientists find a drug to strengthen memory, will everyone feel compelled to use it?

Which leads me to think again, as I did in response to the May 2008 report about a brain pacemaker to treat depression, of Greg Bear's 1997 book Slant. In it, he foretells of a future in which people become so immersed in the electronic information age that civilization reaches a crisis point.

In Bear’s future world, inhabitants are unaware that a crisis is unfolding, since it involves the very technology which keeps them submissive to the erosion of their surroundings. Most experiences with other humans are achieved not in person but electronically, by jacking oneself into the ‘net. Even sex is not immune.

The technology which keeps people in this future world content and accepting the status quo is “therapy” involving surgical adjustments to the brain. These procedures have become the norm, such that the “non-therapied” are considered the lunatics - the oddballs, malcontents, marginalized - and “normals” are as rare as the dodo. In some cases, the therapy amounts to the ultimate, permanent happy pill: no condition can make the therapied unhappy, even jailing.

Taking drugs to achieve the same thing I see as essentially no different. It’s more than ethical issues about individuals taking responsibility for their own actions that concerns me. I’m even more concerned about the potential for people in power, in collusion with the psychiatric industry which already wields its own power, to drug the plebes into accepting what they otherwise wouldn’t.

In that sphere, consumerism has been the most recent drug of choice, promoted by the haves to the (largely) have-nots.

Recommend this post

Way to Go, Portugal !

Portugal leads other European countries in the war on drugs, by decriminalizing all drugs including heroin and cocaine. Although drug use and possession are still prohibited, it is not considered criminal in the eyes of the law.

Under the new legal framework, all drugs were "decriminalized," not "legalized." Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm.

It has been seven years since Portugal decriminalized drugs and most politicians continue to support this reform, as data collected shows drug related pathologies in their country have decreased.

More significantly, none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for "drug tourists" — has occurred.

Author Glen Greenwald has written a book that says it all: "Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for creating fair and successful drug policies." A proven precedent has been set by Portugal.
What are we waiting for?

Recommend this post

Decriminalize the Dreaded Pot

There is at least one Member of Parliament who is awake to the nonsense of punishing petty pot smokers: Keith Martin.

The Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP will submit a private member's bill in the House of Commons today that recommends fines instead of criminal charges for anyone with less than 30 grams of marijuana or two marijuana plants.

It isn't the first time Mr. Martin has tried to bring some sense around the pot problem.

Martin has twice proposed similar private member's bills -- in 2002 and again in 2007 -- but failed both times. What's different now, Martin said, is the move to decriminalize possession of two marijuana plants, which would deter people from going to dealers to get their pot.

Even though Martin is not optimistic about getting this bill passed, he will continue bringing it to the attention of those we've elected.

Though he admits private member's bills virtually never pass, Martin said raising the issue will push his larger goal of making substance abuse a medical issue rather than a judicial one.

Now, if a few hundred more politicians would listen to their constituency and press for changes, it may finally happen.

Recommend this post

More on Drugs

I know I have been going on about ending drug prohibition but I feel more has to be said.

Even the police are in favour of legalization, risking their reputation and their jobs to do so.

Cops like David Bratzer are a rare breed.

Think of the late Gil Puder. A distinguished Vancouver police officer, Puder called for an end to the war on drugs while he was in active service during the late 1990s and continued to do so despite threats of disciplinary action from his superiors.

Or the recently retired West Vancouver police chief Kash Heed. At one time, while he was still with the Vancouver police, Heed, according to Bratzer, also spoke about the legalization of drugs.

Bratzer has been with the Victoria police for only three years, and already the 31-year-old officer has stepped forward to question the basis of the country’s drug laws.

The resources spent on fighting crime is staggering.

> Share of enforcement-related activities in Canada’s drug strategy: 75 percent

> Share of drug-related criminal charges in Canadian courts in 2002: 23 percent

> Cost associated with drug cases before the courts in 2002: $330 million

> Policing costs for drug enforcement in 2002: $1.43 billion

> Correctional-service costs associated with drugs in 2002: $573 million

> Canadians reporting having used illicit drugs during their life in 1994: 28.5 percent

> Canadians reporting illicit-drug use during their life in 2004: 45 percent

Source: “Canada’s 2003 renewed drug strategy—an evidence-based review”, published in the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review’s December 2006 edition

Canadians are not alone in this endeavour. A widely read on line US journal has sent a pleas to help end the sham.

It is clear. We have the biggest opportunity in history to truly transform public policy about drugs.

Dramatically different political circumstances -- a new president and increasingly dire domestic and global economic crises -- give us a fresh opportunity to challenge the basic premises of the failed and destructive drug war.

But in order to seize the moment, we need to educate and mobilize the largest audience possible for drug reform in the next few months -- before the drug warriors reassert their influence

What can you do? Find out what is happening in your area about drug reform. Ask your local, provincial and federal politicians what their stance is.
Make some noise!

Recommend this post

Mr. Layton, you blew it.

It was a golden opportunity. But according to this report, it would seem that you blew it, Mr. Layton.

New Democrats have signalled their support for anti-gang legislation tabled by the Tories that includes making any gang-related homicide a first-degree murder charge and creating a new charge for drive-by shootings....

"We're here to underline the importance of strong action at the federal level. We haven't seen what we need to see yet from the federal government," [NDP leader Jack Layton] told reporters outside the main headquarters of the Vancouver police department.

"There's some legislation that's coming forward that we'll be supporting but we also know that there's more legislation, prosecutions, policing and prevention."
...

Mr. Layton suggested he would look at bolstering calls by the B.C. government for federal-justice changes that include better wiretap access to track Internet and BlackBerry communications and an end to two-for-one credits for time served.

Instead of reinforcing the anti-drug philosophy of North American political elites, the NDP might instead have demonstrated an understanding of the crux of the problem, that just as prohibition of alcohol didn't work, so it doesn't work for drug use.

Mr. Layton, if you stop the anti-drug war, then you stop creating the very condition which helps gangs thrive and proliferate.

But then, you know that, don't you? The problem is, you or your backers haven't the guts to take a bold political stand on the issue.

Recommend this post

Advice Layton Should Take

The Georgia Straight, Vancouver's hip (and Canada's largest) weekly magazine, has a suggestion for Jack Layton: on his visit to the city tomorrow, he should announce his party's intention to campaign against drug prohibition.

Vancouver East NDP Libby Davies has set an example by courageously speaking out against prohibition in the sex trade. She has taken a lot of abuse for doing this. But she knows that in the end, this is what will save lives.

Perhaps some of her NDP colleagues in Parliament (Bill Siksay? Don Davies? Peter Julian?) can stiffen their resolve, and start talking about solutions [to crime and gangland killings] rather than engaging in cheap photo ops designed to pander to the corporate media.

The NDP has nothing to lose. With its current polling numbers, the party will be decimated in the next federal campaign. Taking a stand against drug prohibition could transform the next federal election because Layton would get lots of coverage from antiprohibitionist journalists, including Dan Gardner and Ian Mulgrew, just to name a couple. The media are full of libertarians.

Excellent advice. If the NDP were to make drug prohibition a major plank in its next campaign - and starting now, to draw people's focus to it -, then it may well see people giving it a second look. People, for example, like Daphne and me.

Recommend this post

More Idiots Dictating Morality

Juxtapose this:

A U.N. anti-narcotics drive has backfired in part by making drug cartels so rich they can bribe their way through West Africa and Central America, U.N. crime agency chief Antonio Maria Costa said on Wednesday. The 10-year "war on drugs" campaign ... had a "dramatic unintended consequence" - profit-gorged trafficking gangs destabilizing nations already plagued by poverty, joblessness and HIV-AIDS.

with this from the same article:

Critics of U.N. anti-drug policy want more stress put on harm-reduction policies ... or even legalization to remove the mafia element responsible for bloody turf wars and failing states.

Costa agreed with more harm-reduction efforts but rejected calls for legalization as dangerously naive and defeatist, likening this to accepting pedophilia and human trafficking.

"We should invest in the solid middle ground between criminalization and legalization - by framing our collective efforts against drugs less like a war, and more like an effort to cure a social disease."

What substance of choice are these idiots on? If it's alcohol or tobacco, let me point them to these findings.

If inhaling cannabis is symptomatic of a social disease and warrants state intervention, then so does smoking tobacco or guzzling alcohol. You choose your poison. I'll choose mine.* Just don't license YOUR choice over mine.

*Actually, I choose no poison. Canna afford it. And I've a thing about ingesting/inhaling/injecting non-food substances. But, hey, that's me. Am loathe to dictate what others can choose.

Recommend this post

Marijuana Prohibition on it's Way Out?

Is an end to marijuana prohibition on the way? So says this US Senator.

Today Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) announced the introduction of groundbreaking legislation that would tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. The Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education act (AB 390) would create a regulatory structure similar to that used for beer, wine and liquor, permitting taxed sales to adults while barring sales to or possession by those under 21.

Other advantages would occur as well.

Board of Equalization Chairwoman Betty Yee said, "This common sense measure effectively prioritizes state resources during these times of fiscal constraint. Prioritizing law enforcement to control the most serious drugs while raising new revenues from casual marijuana use directed to treating serious drug addiction is a prudent use of limited resources."

Hopefully, this proposal for legislative change will be accepted and that Canada will quickly follow our neighbour's good example.

Recommend this post

Legalize Street Drugs, Save Billions

Gang war killings, murder and mayhem resulting from the black market dealing of street drugs seems to be the norm these days.

Rafe Mair, in his article, has expressed an often stated solution: de-criminalization or, better yet, legalization. He points out that alcohol, a legal drug, is the cause of untold damage.

Our society is, of course, as hypocritical as hell as it peddles well-advertised alcohol, the most dangerous of all drugs. The cost of alcohol to society is in the billions and even then things like broken homes, single parent families, costs to business operations and so on make it impossible to even come up with an educated guess at the real cost of booze to society. Yet no one seriously says we should go back to Prohibition and bring back the illegal stills, bootleggers, rum runners and dives or speakeasies that do so well when their product is illegal.

Yet we are inundated with with media stories about the destruction caused by the myriad facets of the illegal drug trade. Decriminalizing or legalizing would go a long way to solving such criminal activity.

Were we to sanction the sale of these substances, billions of dollars would be saved.

While estimates vary, the United Nations believes that the annual global sales of illicit drugs are between $450 billion and $750 billion. In Canada, the government's estimates of sales range from $7 billion to $18 billion.

An estimated 125,000 people in Canada inject drugs. The economic costs, including health care (for example, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis), lost productivity, property crime and enforcement, are estimated to exceed $5 billion annually.

Wouldn't the money be better spent on social programs, education or saving our environment rather than battling this losing war on drugs?

Recommend this post

Essay: USian angst turned into commodity

Outstanding on many fronts, this essay highlights the connections between the (North) American individuation of uniquely (North) American human suffering and its promotion and perpetuation by the state. The essay should be read in its entirety.

The pathology of Americanness is entirely about human consciousness, a taboo subject in our declining industrial super state.

The subject has been officially smothered, or even demonized, by authority since it was first openly broached in the '60s. However, those running the industrial government complex learned a few things, too, in the process. Particularly about the efficacy of dope.

Being authoritarian and capitalist, they of course preferred downers over the mind-expanding drugs. And ever since then, corporately produced biochemicals, tranqs, mind-numbing antidepressants and the like have been successfully used privately on individuals to squelch the psychic anguish produced in the Darwinian workhouse America has become.

Not that I'm entirely opposed... Hell, I'm an American -- instant gratification works for me, too. But an anesthetic to workhouse burnout just ain't enough incentive...

Seriously though, back in the '60s, along with LSD, nature and Buddhism, I looked to psychology for answers... But who'd have guessed it would become a massive and officially sanctioned ideological control arm of the state? A form of social control and containment of the citizenry through a governmental and corporately sponsored "mental heath system"? And the way it does so is this: It refuses to acknowledge that our aggregate society holds any responsibility for the conditions it produces in our fellow individual members.

Now, collective societal responsibility is common sense for, say, a Dane or a Frenchman. Most of them anyway. For Americans though, it's an explosive issue. Because if we acknowledged collective responsibilities to the individual members of our society, then we would have to deal with the issue of class in this country.

Unaware we were doing it, Daphne and I each wrote a post on this essay, and each interpreted it in a different way. So we decided to let both posts stand.

Recommend this post

On Corruption: Drugs, Doctors and Doctored Academe

From the New York Review of Books comes a summary of three must-reads:

Recently Senator Charles Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has been looking into financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and the academic physicians who largely determine the market value of prescription drugs. He hasn't had to look very hard.

Take the case of Dr. Joseph L. Biederman, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and chief of pediatric psychopharmacology at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital. Thanks largely to him, children as young as two years old are now being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with a cocktail of powerful drugs, many of which were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for that purpose and none of which were approved for children below ten years of age...

In June, Senator Grassley revealed that drug companies, including those that make drugs he advocates for childhood bipolar disorder, had paid Biederman $1.6 million in consulting and speaking fees between 2000 and 2007... After the revelation, the president of the Massachusetts General Hospital and the chairman of its physician organization sent a letter to the hospital's physicians expressing not shock over the enormity of the conflicts of interest, but sympathy for the beneficiaries...

Read the whole thing. And get the books - I plan to, once they get to my local library. The tale goes from bad to worse.

Recommend this post

It's WAR! Destroy the ... poppies!

This could not be more wrong-headed. Soon the Canadian military in Afghanistan could be targeting Afghan drug lords and poor Afghan farmers' poppy fields.

Canada's top general, Water Natynczyk, says that the

ties between the drug trade and the insurgency are too strong to dismiss any longer, as profits or product often end up directly in the hands of fighters.

"Most times that we have operations, our soldiers, sailors and airmen have found drugs right there with Taliban," he said. "So the nexus between drugs and terror is very, very strong."

The drug lords make huge profits precisely because nations like the USA, Canada and the UK prohibit the use and sale of narcotics. Hence, the price of drugs which are deemed illegal skyrockets. Ironically, these nations are fine allowing alcohol and tobacco consumption, which major studies, including this one have shown to be far more damaging to individuals and societies.

But that's a separate issue. Allowing that leaders of these nations will remain recalcitrant to stopping the War on Drugs™ - might it be that it, too, is profitable in its own way? -, there is presently a workable, legal solution which would undermine the position of the Afghan drug lords almost immediately.

Instead of destroying poor Afghan farmers' livelihood, Canada should support using their crops for legal purposes, to produce morphine tablets. Such medication is desperately needed in under-developed countries.

Recommend this post

Junk Food Stocks Up - and Health Costs, Drug Profits, Waistlines

The headline reads: Burger King up despite downturn

As if this event is at all surprising.

Burger King Holdings Inc. posted higher sales in North America and stood by its full-year profit forecast in the face of an economic downturn. The world's No. 2 hamburger chain said sales at global stores open at least one year rose 3.6 per cent. Same-store sales in North America were up three per cent, helped by menu items like Apple Fries and Kraft Mac & Cheese.

Why would anyone be surprised that individuals and families who likely frequented middle to up-scale restaurants in the past are now turning to Burger King? I've no doubt that the profits of MacDonald's and other fast-food chains are up too.

This is only further evidence of the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the result being a lopsided hourglass with bloated head (wealthy), skeletal torso (upper to lower middle class) and enormous hips (the huge numbers below the poverty line).

Now regarding those expanding hips, this report links the likely rise in obesity with the high corn content in junk food.

Locally grown, organic heirloom tomatoes: $8.59 a kilogram.

One box of organic, low-fat, seven-grain cereal: $5.45.

Double cheeseburger at your favourite fast-food joint: $1.59.

It's an equation that U.S. corn farmers couldn't be happier about.

Yes, you read that right – corn. "The first step in making fast food is to grow an ear of corn," says A. Hope Jahren, the researcher behind a study that found an undeniable link between the two.

Therefore, junk stocks up? Well so go the average Body Mass Index¹, the cost to our acute care system, Big Pharma profits, ...

¹ There are flaws to the BMI. Consider the premier athlete, someone with above average muscle development and low body fat. It's possible for highly active people to have a high BMI, yet be far from obese and in excellent health.

Recommend this post

Depression Screening for Heart Patients NOT such a Good Idea

Contrary to the recommendation by the American Heart Association to routinely screen heart patients for depression, a review of 17 studies indicates there to be no benefit.

In [patients] who showed signs of depression, symptoms improved only slightly — by 1 to 4 percent — with antidepressant drug treatment.

"We cannot in good conscience support screening all heart patients," study co-author Roy Ziegelstein, vice chairman of medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, said in a statement. "This is a difficult call for us to make, but it is in the best interest of patients at this time" because of its cost, side effects of drug treatment and potentially negative effects of being misdiagnosed as depressed...

The AHA recommends that heart patients are screened for depressive symptoms with a two- or nine-question survey, then referred for a more detailed workup if they score high on those questions. Patients who are diagnosed with depression should be treated with medication, counseling, exercise, cardiac rehabilitation or a combination, according to the guidelines.

If I had heart disease and was subjected to depression screening, I'd be livid - once I stopped laughing.

Get a psychiatrist near me, spewing their pseudo-science, and there's no telling what I'd do. Of course, my normal reaction would likely get labelled as evidence of my suffering from one psychosis/neurosis or another.

Recommend this post

Redefining Cancer: A chronic condition similar to AIDS?

Interesting article today from Scientific American on the connection between the development of cancerous cells and inflammation.

The six-page article sites numerous studies including, importantly, two recent ones, which suggest that the prevailing view of cancer and thus how it should be treated - that a cancerous growth is like a diseased organ which needs excision - may be wrong.

Instead, it may be better to view and treat cancer more like a chronic condition.

I quickly read all six pages - well, more scanned the last one and a half - and extracted these bits as the most relevant for the non-health techs among us.

Inflammation, its hallmark characteristic, has gained recognition as an underlying contributor to virtually every chronic disease—a list that, besides obvious culprits such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease, includes diabetes and depression, along with major killers such as heart disease and stroke. The possibility of a link with a third major killer—cancer—has received intensive scrutiny in this decade...

As some researchers have described the malignant state: genetic damage is the match that lights the fire, and inflammation is the fuel that feeds it....

Rooting out every last cancer cell in the body might not be necessary. Anti-inflammatory cancer therapy instead would prevent premalignant cells from turning fully cancerous or would impede an existing tumor from spreading to distant sites in the body. Cancer sufferers might then be able to survive, in the same way that new drugs have let HIV patients live longer. “I don’t think a cure is necessarily the goal. It doesn’t need to be,” comments Lisa M. Coussens, a cancer biologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “If you can manage the disease and live your natural life span, that’s a huge win.”

...In recent years a body of evidence has accumulated to show that chronic inflammation can play an important role in the progression of some types of tumors from a premalignant state to full-blown disease. A link between cancer and inflammation has long been suspected... Cancer biologist Harold F. Dvorak of Harvard Medical School remarked in 1986 that tumors are “wounds that do not heal.” The status quo, though, lay elsewhere. Even a decade ago many biologists still hewed to the idea that the immune system serves not only to eliminate pathogens but to ferret out cells that are the abnormal precursors of cancer....

Cutting into tumors, such as for a prostate biopsy, sometimes seems to encourage metastasis [suggesting that] the inflammation generated by the intervention could be at fault....

Instead of just killing cancer cells—the goal of current drug therapies and radiation—new approaches may supplement existing drugs by slowing inflammation. Without the involvement of macrophages and other innate cells, the premalignant tissue would remain in check.

Cancer could, in essence, become a chronic disease akin to rheumatoid arthritis, another inflammatory condition. “Keep in mind almost no one dies of primary cancer,” says Raymond DuBois, provost of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and a researcher of anti-inflammatory agents for cancer. “A patient almost always dies from a metastasis.”

... it seems likely that a new generation of anti-inflammatory agents will join the chemotherapeutic arsenal. Chronic diseases—and their underlying inflammatory conditions—are hallmarks of an aging population. “We’re all a little bit overinflamed,” Pollard observes. Treating the smoldering embers that surround the tumor rather than just mutant cells could make cancer a disease we can live with.

Call me a cynic, but I do wonder how well the cancer industry has received this news.

I mean, oncologists and others related to the industry - including certain charitable foundations whose admin costs absorb the largest share of all donation dollars - have made whole careers on the existence of cancer as a condition which needs a huge investment in research, and whose treatment is surgery and/or drug and radiation therapy.

Recommend this post

War against War on Drugs wins a Round

Voters in Michigan said Yes to physician supervised possession and use of cannabis.

In Massachusetts, they took it a step further, saying Yes to marijuana-possession becoming a fine-only offence.

More than 60 percent of Michigan voters decided in favor of Proposal 1, which establishes a state-regulated system regarding the use and cultivation of medical marijuana by qualified patients.

Voters endorsed the measure despite a high profile, deceptive, and despicable ad campaign by Prop. 1 opponents -- who falsely claimed that the initiative would allow for the open sale of marijuana "in every neighborhood, just blocks from schools."

...Michigan's new law goes into effect on December 4th, at which time nearly one-quarter of the US population will live in a state that authorizes the legal use of medical cannabis.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, some 65 percent of voters (and virtually every town) decided "yes" on Question 2, which reduces minor marijuana possession to a fine-only offense. Like in Michigan, voters rejected a high-profile, deceptive ad campaign by the measure's opponents, who argued that it would increase adolescent drug abuse, permit large-scale marijuana trafficking, endanger workplace safety, and sharply increase traffic fatalities.

Question 2 is expected to become law in 30 days - making Massachusetts the thirteenth state to decriminalize the personal possession and use of cannabis.

As USians move closer to decriminalizing marijuana, Canada's Conservative government moves us backwards. Well done Harper!

Recommend this post

Oh, the poor pharmaceutical companies!

Profits at Merck, one of the US-based giants in pharmaceuticals, has seen its third-quarter profits fall by 28 percent.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck is to cut 7,200 jobs, or roughly 12% of its workforce. Around 40% of the cuts will be in the United States, many of them from management as Merck trims the number of senior and mid-level executives by 25%....

These cuts come on top of the axing of 10,400 positions announced in 2005, which Merck says was "substantially complete" as of last month.

...Research and development spending actually rose by 2% if expenses from restructuring efforts and the 2007 acquisition of NovaCardia are taken into account.

Guess people are wising up about prescription drugs, huh?

• that they often cause worse conditions than they are supposed to treat, and
• that Big Pharma promotes its drugs to treat non-existent illnesses, such as menopause, grief and poverty.

Yea, poverty. Rather than treat the cause of poverty-induced anxiety, stress and depression, we just turn poor people into 'patients' and then drug 'em. See Elysia's story for an excellent example of that.

Recommend this post

CanWest Global and Drug Ad Laws

The following video was researched and created by Rob Wipond, an independent journalist.

What it's about: Canada's biggest media empire has launched a lawsuit to strike down restrictions against prescription drug advertising. But your media isn't telling you about it - find out why and what the potential danger is to you.

Recommend this post

The "Healthcare" Meme

While I appreciated the announcement of the Liberal Party's proposal of a catastrophic drug plan, I'm tired of the meme "healthcare," which is code for the medical and acute care industry.

WHY do parties and politicians insist on maintaining the fiction that health is equivalent to care-after-the-fact? Worse, that sickness prevention requires only the targeting of individual behaviour, such as addiction and eating and exercise habits?

There is a consistent message coming from Canada's public health professionals, the World Health Organization and international agencies, and even from our own government's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones (whose report was quietly tucked away by the Harper government). It is this:

Social conditions crucially matter. And they can be deadly.

Investing more and more money on doctors, nurses, hospital beds, trauma care ... is wrong-headed. First, our acute care system needs a management overall, rather than just more money thrown at it. Second - and more importantly - we need fewer SICK PEOPLE, fewer people made vulnerable to illness.

Poverty causes stress. Stress is a proven primary underlying cause of heart disease, diabetes, and other major and chronic illnesses.¹

Given these facts, which have been known for decades by researchers of the social determinants of health, it's clear that poverty is the #1 killer and our largest health threat.

People need less stress in their lives. With less stress, we'll be healthier. With fewer stressed people, Canada's acute care system can undergo its own recovery.

Whether members of the medical and drug industries would be happy with fewer sick people is another matter.

¹ Google 'poverty causes stress' and you'll be swamped with references. Also simply 'stress causes'; your search result will uncover a huge number of diseases linked to stress.

Recommend this post