Dear Editor

At the United Church鈥檚 candidates forum on Tuesday, one subject received significant attention 鈥� the scourge of opiate addiction.

It is a complex problem with no easy solutions but it鈥檚 helpful to consider what set us on this path.

In the 1980鈥檚, the drug industry and the medical community began to intensely promote the idea that 鈥榓ll pain is unacceptable and we have a pill for that鈥�. To this day, more than half of all new opiate addicts are introduced to the drug courtesy of a medical doctor鈥檚 prescription. Many of these prescriptions are for functional musculoskeletal pain of various sorts.

That same decade gave us the Canada Health Act (1984). Medical practices would no longer be allowed to extra-bill their patients. In return, MD鈥檚 and hospitals were essentially granted a monopoly to provide publicly funded health care across the country. In a nod to 鈥榗omprehensiveness鈥�, provinces were given the option of providing insurance coverage for 鈥渟imilar or additional services rendered by other health care practitioners鈥�.

For a time, the province of BC did that. The services of Doctors of Chiropractic, Doctors of Naturopathy and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Physiotherapists, Podiatrists and Massage Therapists were (partly) covered for everyone in B.C. Then in 2002 they 鈥榙e-listed鈥� all of these providers, deeming them 鈥榥on-essential鈥�.

Over the past 20 years, opiate use has become a public health disaster. Drug-less practitioners did not create this monster and they could help to defeat it by providing care that is safer, more effective and far less expensive to society.

The people of B.C. need more choices, with equal access to useful drug-free alternatives.  

Squandering Billions (2005) by G. Bannerman & D. Nixdorf, DC (Hancock House) contains important insights into our struggling healthcare system. I highly recommend it.  

W. D. Armstrong, DC
Comox