By Geordie Constant  

(Originally published in People’s Voice)

I come from a security background. Not cybersecurity or anything that requires an education – I come from a uniform, patrol a grocery store kind of security background. I got out of that because I wanted to help people and in the security field, securing property is the main goal while helping is a low priority.

Eventually I was able to put myself through school and become a detox worker with Vancouver Coastal Health. I don’t believe in dream jobs, but this is as close as I’ve ever come – I make beds, do laundry and give people sandwiches. When people have a seizure or a medical emergency, I’m the first point of contact. It’s my duty to make sure that the nurses are having a smooth as time as possible in order to keep patients alive and healthy.

Detoxing from drugs and alcohol is an extremely difficult thing. When a person detoxes from a substance, they run the risk of going into a seizure, having a stroke or any number of health problems. It’s a difficult, painful, physically taxing process that needs a great deal of medication, monitoring and emotional support.

One thing I have noticed in my work, at least anecdotally, is that at least a third if not more of my clients are working people. There are nurses, doctors, business people and contractors who come in to detox. They all went to school and made the right decisions in life and most of them definitely have more money than I do, but for one reason or another they got hooked on some kind of self-medication. Whether it’s nurses using stimulants to get through twelve-hour shifts or roofers using downers after a fourteen-hour shift, there’s a reason people medicate.

My work is difficult because I’m comforting people who are often in a lot of pain or very sick and may at any time have a seizure or start vomiting blood. What I find rewarding about it is those moments when people really commit and get clean. Just a month ago, a man came in with the addictions peer panel and mentioned me by name. I’d forgotten the man, so I asked how he knew me. Turns out he was one of my clients during orientation, and since his discharge he’d gotten work and become a volunteer with AA.

When people want to get better, nine times out of ten they do. Do you know what doesn’t help people get better? Being forced into treatment.

It should be obvious that involuntary treatment doesn’t work. Years and years ago “The Simpsons” television show made a joke about it. Homer Simpson had to get sober, not because he wanted to but because the justice system twisted his arm, and it went about as well as can be expected. Yet it’s a funny joke because it’s shockingly true. I’ve worked with clients who were at detox because their parole officer made them. They didn’t jump out a window screaming like Homer Simpson did, but they did bail as soon as their symptoms lessened a little bit.

Involuntary treatment is a crock and the people behind it know as much. Best case scenario, it’s about jailing people for money like they do in the US. There’s a reason that BC’s Involuntary Treatment Program is set to start up in a literal solitary confinement unit in Surrey. Because nothing helps a person’s mental health and wellbeing like rotting in jail.

Involuntary treatment doesn’t work. Research in the International Journal of Drug Policy finds as much: Globally, out of 430 studies, only 9 passed muster about involuntary care; 33 percent showed people had no better chance of recovery than voluntary care; 22 percent of studies found involuntary and voluntary care to be equally effective; and 22 percent more showed negative outcomes compared to voluntary care. Just two studies of nine showed better outcomes than voluntary care. Overwhelmingly, voluntary treatment works better than locking people in the clink. The Journal of Drug Policy itself cautions that involuntary care has massive potential for human rights abuses and governments should prioritize voluntary care.

Then again, the people who advocate for involuntary treatment are not in the business of medicine – they’re thieves pure and simple.

It’s traditional for a robber to disguise their identity with a mask. Some of them use a ski mask, while others use a nice suit and buzzwords like “common sense” to rob the public and spearhead the privatization of medicine. Outfits like Last Door Recovery are for-profit ventures that have heavy connections to conservative political actors; Press Progress has good articles exposing this fraud. Their purpose is not to help people recover from addiction but to milk them for every bit of cash they can.

These “experts” in the recovery business have no regulation regarding their posts, but successive NDP and Liberal governments treat them like they actually know what they’re doing and craft policy to accommodate their agenda. It’s not recovery – it’s highway robbery and we, the good people of BC are the ones being robbed.

I got into the healthcare field in order to help people. When I see people get over dope sickness and ask me for a sandwich, or when they start to share with me their plans they made with a social worker and feel excited, I know I’m helping and I know I’m in the right line of work.

So, push back against involuntary treatment, because it’s just incarceration for another name. It helps nobody, it costs the taxpayer and enriches people who already have more money than God.