Poverty, pregnancy and a lack of child care are often barriers to women who need treatment for drug, alcohol or tobacco addictions, a national substance abuse conference in Edmonton heard Sunday.

Nancy Poole, a researcher for the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women in Vancouver, told more than 100 delegates at the conference's opening session that women need specialized harm-reduction and treatment programs to meet their unique needs, Poole said.

One delegate called for better integration of drug, tobacco and alcohol treatment programs for women who have also been sexually abused, live in violent relationships or are suffering with mental illness.
(CBC)

"A huge obstacle was the lack of recognition for the need for women-specific and women-centred responses and real commitment to action on that," she said.

Poole also called for better integration of drug, tobacco and alcohol treatment programs for women who have also been sexually abused, live in violent relationships or are suffering with mental illness.

"We need to work [on it] so that it's not this fragmented thing [that says] `Well, you can only get this here and you have to go over there for that'," she said.

"How can we knit our response together much better?"

Many delegates at the conference work in substance-abuse treatment, and prevention or harm-reduction programs across Canada. The annual conference of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse continues to Nov. 28.

As many as 80 per cent of women entering treatment programs also have histories of being abused or assaulted, and many use drugs or alcohol to try to cope, delegates were told.

Lorraine Greaves, executive director of the women's health centre in B.C., says new research has shown that women and men should be treated differently for substance abuse.

"We're finding, for example, that women metabolize alcohol and nicotine differently than men," she said.

"We're learning things like women get most of the mood-altering drug prescriptions in this country. That's been true for 30 years and that's not changing," she said.

Different clinical treatment for women needed

Women who smoke or drink can get more serious diseases and have poorer outcomes than men of the same age, Greaves said.

"That means we actually do have the need for different clinical treatment for women," she said.

Women tend to suffer more early childhood sexual abuse and violence than men and that also has to be integrated into treatment programs, Greaves added.

Women with addictions may not seek help because they're worried about losing custody of their children, she said.

Women who are pregnant and addicted are vilified by society, Greaves said, and that needs to change.

"Even if there are so-called treatment programs available for them, or information, they don't go to them. They don't go to them because they're afraid, ashamed and they feel guilty."

Nancy Bradley, executive director of the Jean Tweed Centre in Toronto, said there have only been substance abuse programs specifically for women in the last 20 years.

The trauma that women suffered through sexual or physical abuse wasn't understood or factored into the way they were treated for addictions, she added.

"We now understand how trauma interplays with the issues of substance use for women," Bradley said.