(Ottawa) The Canadian Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Ya’ara Saks, believes that fear and stigma explain some opposition to her government’s decision to support the prescription of pharmaceutical products to drug addicts to combat the addiction crisis. overdoses in Canada.
Ya’ara Saks blames the growing reluctance on the unease many feel about a reality they can no longer ignore. “The debate is difficult because people have looked the other way, but they can no longer do so now,” she said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
The Public Health Agency of Canada calculated that drug overdoses killed an average of 23 people every day last year. More than 40,000 people have died from opioid-related deaths since 2016, when the agency began collecting such data.
The majority of overdose deaths between January and June of last year were attributable to fentanyl. Observers say opioids are increasingly contaminated with even more toxic substances.
In just the past two months, police and health officials in Saskatchewan, Thunder Bay and Belleville, Ont., have warned about opioids, primarily fentanyl, combined with an animal tranquilizer called xylazine. Traffickers often mix fentanyl with other substances because it is cheaper than providing pure opioids.
The overdose crisis has worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, with border closures leading to more contaminated drug supplies, health restrictions leading to a lack of access to addiction services, and an increase in the number of people using drugs. alone, as well as at higher doses. This prompted the Government of Canada to allow users considered at high risk of overdose to be prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives rather than taking toxic illicit drugs.
British Columbia became the first jurisdiction to test such an approach, with Ottawa also providing funding for pilot projects in New Brunswick and Ontario.
Health Canada has reported opioid hydromorphone tablets as the most commonly prescribed substitute. A federally commissioned study of these pilot projects found a decreased risk of overdose and that drug users could obtain drugs more safely than through street dealers or sex work.
At the same time, however, it was reported that some fentanyl users had too high a tolerance for the amount of hydromorphone they were prescribed. As a result, they turned around and sold their prescribed drugs on the streets. The problem was reported by the DD Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s chief public health officer, as a common occurrence in her recent review of her province’s safer supply program.
Critics of the program have seized on the problem. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has expressed concerns that diverted narcotics are ending up in the hands of minors. Poilievre calls safer supply programs Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “failed hard drug supply project” and has pledged to cut federal funding for these programs if elected. He said a Conservative government would spend the money on reintegration programs.
Minister Ya’ara Saks assures that she has listened to the concerns related to drug diversion, in particular those of a group of doctors who wrote to her directly. She added that last fall she asked officials to examine the safer supply programs from top to bottom and make adjustments as necessary.
Despite political reluctance and concerns about diversion, Mme Saks defended continued funding for safer supply programs as necessary to save lives, but signaled it was only one approach to addressing the crisis. “Much of what drives the debate about alternatives to prescribers is rooted, unfortunately by the opposition, in stigma and fear. »
She nevertheless recognized that the federal government could do more to inform the population about how these programs work.
Last week, Ya’ara Saks visited Belleville, after the eastern Ontario city of 50,000 declared a state of emergency on Feb. 8 due to overdoses. First responders dealt with 17 overdoses in just 24 hours.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s political entourage has promised more money for the city but said he has no plans to move toward a safer drug supply.
Minister Saks’ message to those who challenge harm reduction programs is to talk.