According to a brief submitted by Action Toxicomanie Montreal,
alcoholism and drug addiction affects 10% of the residents of
Montreal.
The brief, which was submitted to the Regional Board of
Health and Social Services, evaluates that the problems of
alcoholism and drug-addiction in Montreal directly and indirectly
cost the government $640.7 million. It also writes that over
320,000 people, two thirds of whom are women, are direct victims
of drug addiction: domestic violence, sexual abuse, parental
neglect, abandonment, dropping out and learning problems.
The report notes that the clientele using the centres
specializing in the treatment of alcoholics and drug-addicted in
Montreal is younger and younger. Multiple drug-addiction is
particularly growing amongst those 35-years and younger. Amongst
the 35-years and older, the dominant problem is alcoholism, which
also affects 50% of the population.
Treatment centres are fighting this increasing trend with
less and less resources available to them. At the Dollar-Cormier
Centre, there is an annual waiting list of 50,000 people for
external consultation.
This data reveals the disastrous consequences of the
anti-social offensive, an offensive that seeks to bring society
back to medievalism when individuals were left to fend for
themselves. The victims of these consequences are entitled to
demand that society take care of them. These statistics also show
that only a society that places the well-being of human beings at
the centre of its preoccupations will be able to put an end to
these problems once and for all.
TML WEEKLY, 10/97
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
