Pubdate: Thu, 01 Dec 2016
Source: Vancouver 24hours (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Vancouver 24 hrs.
Contact: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/letters
Website: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3837
Author: Ada Slivinski
Page: 6

RECOVERY NEEDS MORE RESOURCES AMID OVERDOSE EPIDEMIC

This week, the B.C. Coroners Service announced that Vancouver police
had for the first time found carfentanil at the scene of an apparent
illicitdrug overdose death on Nov. 17.

The deadly drug is used as an elephant tranquilizer and 100 times more
toxic than fentanyl, and deadly to humans in an amount smaller than a
grain of salt.

The fentanyl crisis in the province has reached epidemic proportions.
So far this year, overdoses have killed 622 people in B.C., a 56.7 per
cent increase over the same time period last year, during which there
were 397 deaths.

Hospital emergency departments are flooded with overdose patients and
staff say they often say the same people being brought back multiple
times for a shot of the antidote naloxone.

InSite is overflowing and street patrols and makeshift supervised
injection sites have been launched in attempts to prevent overdose
deaths.

Emergency responders are having to prioritize overdose calls because
they are life and death situations.

Drug screening at InSite can help identify the presence of fentanyl
cut into other drugs but the problems is, drug users will often inject
the stuff anyway.

When they reach the point where they're sick for drugs, many addicts
say there is not really anything that will stop them from injecting.

Supervised injection sites alone are not the answer to this crisis,
they are a band-aid solution and staff are finding themselves
responding to the same people overdosing.

It's a revolving door and the crisis just keeps getting worse. Ottawa
has banned six of the chemicals used to make fentanyl, but there will
always be another - stronger - drug.

We need to invest resources in recovery programs.

Lift people out of the constant cycle of devastating addiction. Most
recovery programs are at capacity and always turning people away.

A few years ago, I visited a women's recovery home in
Surrey.

The home was managed by women who themselves were graduates of the
program and I heard so many stories of hope, of reuniting with family,
and building a life free from the chains of addiction.

If we want to see an end to this crisis, save lives and relieve our
health care system from the flood it's currently experiencing, we need
to think long term and fund both prevention and recovery.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt