Hello Ms. Yvonne Clarke MLA for Porter Creek Centre (where I reside) and other MLAs of the Yukon government.
In the fall of 2024, the Yukon’s chief medical officer stated that the Yukon government’s first substance use surveillance report indicated that alcohol’s burden "far exceeds" other substances. The report contains data related to EMS (emergency medical services), hospital and emergency admissions and reports from the chief coroner. Dr. Sudit Ranade says that the Yukon has a more substantial burden of substance abuse than the Canadian average. (Nov. 29/2024 Yukon News).
Dr. Sudit wisely pointed out that alcohol use in the Yukon starts early and while getting treatment is good, it takes the focus away from prevention. The Yukon government spends millions on secondary prevention; primary prevention aims to prevent the onset of disease or illness and secondary prevention attempts to manage the disease and reduce progression once present.
I have lived in the Yukon since 1970, graduated from FH Collins in 1975. I started drinking when I was 15 years old, it became a problem very quickly yet I didn't quit drinking until I was 30 years old. Alcohol and mental illness ran in my family and seven years ago I lost my son to suicide in Whitehorse; he was drinking that fateful night.
I have been a social worker and criminologist in the Yukon for the last 40 years. I have worked in Whitehorse and rural communities in the Yukon. I have seen the suffering that that both alcohol and drugs brings upon families and communities. It’s not uncommon to hear of mothers drinking themselves to death, leaving their children motherless.
We spend millions on secondary prevention programs — EMS, mental health and substance abuse programs, shelters, police, medical system — the list goes on. I would like to see a thoughtful analysis of how successful mental health and substance abuse services programs are for people with substance abuse issues. I can guarantee that we would find dismal results, we keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Secondary prevention provides employment for a whole lot of us, but at what cost?
Primary prevention programs aimed at preventing the problem before it starts is often overlooked. The main point in me writing this letter is to encourage the Yukon government to prevent the harm and one of the ways to do that, is to educate people about the serious harm that alcohol causes.
In Nov. 2017, a federally-funded study in Yukon, which was the first of its kind in Canada, saw colourful labels affixed to all alcohol bottles and cans inside a Whitehorse liquor store. There were two types of labels: one that warned that alcohol can cause cancer, including breast and colon cancer (there are other cancers as well); another label informed purchasers of the recommended maximum number of drinks per day. But just four weeks later, the Yukon Liquor Corporation decided to “pause” the label study after hearing concerns from national alcohol organizations.
The concerns included whether Yukon had the authority to affix the warnings and possible defamation, said the minister responsible for the liquor corporation, John Streicker.
"We have to weigh the costs that we will have to put towards litigation, costs which could go towards trying to reduce the harm of alcohol and promote education," he said.
Timothy Stockwell, a University of Victoria researcher involved in the study, said he felt “extreme disappointment’ when he learned the project was being put on hold. The liquor industry was afraid that the graphic warning labels on booze could curb alcoholism. The label phase was supposed to run for eight months followed by a survey to assess the impact. The colourful labels included graphics, as opposed to U.S. messages that are text only. There was concern about putting the word cancer on the labels yet the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a World Health Organization body, has classified alcohol as a group-one carcinogen, along with tobacco, asbestos and many other materials. (Canadian Press - Laura Kane Posted Jan. 3, 2018).
We are now being told that there is no safe level of alcohol. I am pleased to see that there appears to be increasing numbers of people who are recognizing this fact and choosing to forgo the use of alcohol. I have lived in the Yukon for over 50 years and always wondered why there was so much cancer in such a beautiful pristine land. Could alcohol use have something to do with that? Not to mention the costs alcohol misuse does to families, children, teenagers, including suicide, mental health issues, FASD, incarceration, child abuse, problems in school attendance and missing work, the list goes on. Drinking alcohol can raise your risk of developing these cancers: mouth, laryngeal, breast, liver, pharyngeal, esophageal, stomach, pancreatic and colorectal. Tobacco and alcohol together are worse for you than either on its own. (Canadian Cancer Society).
I propose that we give this study another try, for at least a year. It held promise, can’t we at least try something that would cost peanuts, putting a label on a bottle? Education is key and morally, how can we not try prevention for the sake of Yukon people’s health?
Ms. Clarke encourage your fellow MLAs to be brave and try this inexpensive primary prevention project again; it could save lives, lower health care costs and all other related costs that the Chief Medical Officer spoke about. Don’t let the liquor industry bully you, it might give Yukoners the impression that money from the sale of alcohol is more important than people’s health.
Sincerely,
Cathy Deacon
Whitehorse
