New drug conference highlights recovery from addiction

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – With several new supervised injection sites opening in Metro Vancouver and a major effort towards drug hard reduction, a new conference set to take place in New Westminster this fall wants health officials to put recovery back in the spotlight.

The Recovery Capital Conference of Canada, which runs September 6 to 9 will encourage policy makers and health care providers to foster recovery as part of the care for addiction and to identify the resources they need to help people accomplish it.

“Harm reduction services are very important aspect of the resolution of addiction. For people they can be very important in initiating recovery, but we haven’t paid a lot of attention to the end game,” conference organizer Marshall Smith said. “A drug-free life, improved health, positive engaged citizenship. Those are things recovery embodies. So we have to start having a conversation.”

Portugal’s national drug coordinator Dr. João Goulão, an architect of Portugal’s drug policy, is a keynote speaker at the event and will dispel rumours of the country’s decriminalization of drugs as well as offer insight into what they had to do to support drug users.

New Westminster is quickly becoming the recovery capital of Canada, according to Smith.

“There’s a tremendous effort that both the city, the elected officials, the care providers and recovery community have done tremendous things to shift that community from one that had significant challenges with street disorder to one that is really thriving in terms of the health and recovery of its residence.”

The conference was inspired by the Life in Recovery from Addiction in Canada survey, which compiled the results of a survey of people in recovery from addiction to alcohol and drugs. It found 91 per cent of participants reported their quality of life was either excellent, very good or good after recovery had been initiated.

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