I talked to VanGreen’s leader and Vancouver Mayoral candidate, Pete Fry, after the Dunbar debate in Vancouver, and asked him about the one pillar of the city of Vancouver’s 4-pillar drug policy that all politicians ignore. Prevention. Specifically on ADHD.
I explained to him that people with ADHD had huge rates of substance use disorder, homelessness and crime.
But if we were diagnosed with ADHD and treated with ADHD meds, decades of research show we have lower rates of all three of those.
But most of us ADHD adults are undiagnosed and untreated because most BC doctors are not trained on ADHD.
And I asked him if he was elected as mayor, would he commit to:
Screening people in Vancouver rehabs for ADHD?
Screening people in Vancouver homeless shelters for ADHD?
And asking the VPD to screen for people arrested with ADHD?
Like UK Metropolitan police and Cambridge University did, where they found that 50% of those arrested screened positive for ADHD. And of those arrested for drug crimes, 60% of them either had ADHD or screened positive for ADHD.
He used to work in the DTES and said he would screen people in Vancouver rehabs and Vancouver homeless shelters for ADHD.
He said he’d like to see the info on ADHD and crime. I later sent it to him but haven’t heard back yet.
Thanks for supporting people with ADHD and being fiscally conservative too, Pete Fry. We are very expensive to ignore, and it’s much cheaper to diagnose and treat us