Pubdate: Sat, 19 Nov 2016
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2016 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/send_a_letter
Website: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Mia Rabson
Page: A3

SAVING LIVES DURING OPIOID CRISIS

Politicians, policy-makers discuss ways to prevent
overdoses

OTTAWA - As people continue to die from overdoses, health experts,
policy-makers and grief-stricken family members brainstormed Friday on
a battle plan to take on Canada's opioid-abuse epidemic.

The federal government has been asked to declare the crisis a national
public health emergency.

"During the course of this conference alone... probably six or seven
Canadians will die from opioid overdose," Ontario Health Minister Eric
Hoskins said Friday. "That will happen again tomorrow and the day
after tomorrow. We have a tremendous responsibility as a country."

Hoskins and federal Health Minister Jane Philpott are co-hosting the
two day summit in Ottawa.

"There is no question this is a national public health crisis,"
Philpott said, adding drugs such as fentanyl and carfentanil are
claiming more lives in some parts of the country than vehicle crashes
- - long the No. 1 cause of accidental deaths in North America.

The situation has become so dire that Winnipeg's firefighters and
paramedics have paid for a public-service campaign to underscore the
dangers of opioids.

Emergency responders say they are being called to a half-dozen or more
overdose calls in a typical 12-hour shift. Three people in Winnipeg
died this week in what police believe were fentanyl overdoses.

Fentanyl is a synthetic drug used in pain control that's 50 to 100
times more powerful than morphine.

Carfentanil, which is 100 times more powerful than that, is used
primarily by veterinarians on large animals and is sometimes
prescribed for cancer patients.

Increasingly, illicit forms of the drugs are being smuggled into
Canada and added to street drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The results

Oare tragic. There have been reports of overdoses connected to
fentanyl-laced marijuana. British Columbia is Canada's ground zero.
The province's coroner reported this week that 622 deaths in that
province from January to the end of October were linked to opioids,
and 60 per cent of them were fentanyl-related. By comparison, there
were 300 deaths in traffic accidents in B.C. in 2015.

Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan are also dealing with a rising rate
of overdoses. Manitoba didn't see a sharp uptick in overdose deaths
and hospital admissions until last year - but it is growing quickly
here as well.

In 2014, there were seven deaths linked to fentanyl in Manitoba. In
2015, that went up to 18.

This week, the chief medical examiner confirmed there were nine
fentanyl deaths and five carfentanil deaths from January to May of
this year.

Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen has said the absence of solid
data on the size of the problem is affecting the ability to respond.

Manitoba's acting chief provincial health officer Dr. Elise Weiss, who
is attending the Ottawa conference with Goertzen, said Friday that
developing a better understanding of the people most affected can lead
to better programs to help.

Weiss said it's not clear from other provinces if one particular group
is more at risk than others, noting experts from B.C. and Alberta
report the problem is more prevalent in different age groups in
different cities.

The conference continues today exclusively with policy-makers and
public health officials to work on an action plan and get it rolled
out soon.

Federal regulators have classified naloxone - the antidote to opioid
overdoses - as a non-prescription drug and approved the use of the
nasal-spray form of it.

Weiss said Friday her department is looking at what that entails and
whether it means her department can take further action.

"You can be assured that any mechanism that is available to us to
address this crisis, I will find a way to make sure I use those
mechanisms - that we save lives."

Manitoba's acting chief medical examiner, Dr. John Younes, clarified a
Free Press report that testing for opioids such as fentanyl must be
done out of province because Winnipeg lacked adequate testing equipment.

More specifically, fentanyl overdose deaths can be confirmed in
Winnipeg testing, but cases involving newer variations of opioid
strains must be shipped out of province.

"We are capable of testing for the drug fentanyl in our lab in
Manitoba and we have been for a number of years," he said Friday.

Manitoba ships out carfentanil and other newer fentanyl-related drugs
in overdose deaths that can't be properly identified here.

"Clandestine labs are making powdered forms and mixing it with other
drugs, and they're tweaking the existing fentanyl formulas and coming
up with new forms like carfentanil," the doctor said.

"I'm aware of six or seven of them (new forms of fentanyl-like drugs)
in various jurisdictions in the United States. In Western Canada,
there's also a new one called furanyl. As they keep popping up, we'll
have to keep coming up with new screening protocols to keep up with
it," Younes said.

He also updated the cost of new laboratory equipment, saying the final
price tag is about $1 million.

He said he expects Manitoba to have the new equipment operating early
next year after software with screening protocols is in place.

- - with files from Alexandra Paul
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt