Pubdate: Sun, 19 Feb 2017
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Page: A10

METHADONE IS LIFE OR DEATH

If governments were really providing an urgent response to the
fentanyl crisis, Correne Antrobus wouldn't be prowling Victoria's
streets looking for a drug dealer to sell her daughter methadone.
Antrobus shared her story in the Times Colonist this week. Her
daughter is addicted to opiates, but wants to quit. When she asked her
family for help, they sought medical support and a quick start on
legal methadone that would stabilize her addiction, keep her safe and
allow her to seek treatment.

But that proved impossible. The wait would be up to a month to see a
specialized doctor and get a prescription.

Anyone who deals with addiction knows that delays in providing
treatment are disastrous. There is often a narrow window when the
person has the courage or desperation to seek help. Tell them to wait
in line without support, and they will likely return to the drugs they
need.

And anyone paying attention knows that, given the current fentanyl
crisis, that can be deadly.

So Antrobus, trying to keep her daughter alive and well, is helping
her buy methadone on the street to keep her alive until she can get
treatment - however long that takes.

This is, remember, not a situation that has caught governments by
surprise. As Victoria Police Department Staff Sgt. Conor King noted in
the Times Colonist, police were meeting to deal with the coming
fentanyl explosion - and the resulting deaths - more than a year ago.
It has been 10 months since the province declared a state of emergency.

And the role of effective, timely treatment options - including
opiate-substitution programs based on prescribed methadone and
suboxone - in saving lives is clearly understood.

Yet after a year in which at least 914 people died of opioid overdoses
- - more than three times the number of people killed in car crashes -
people are still waiting for treatment options. And mothers like
Antrobus are breaking the law in a desperate effort to help their children.

There have been positive steps. Newly opened supervised-consumption
sites are providing a safer alternative for drug users - though that,
too, has been a slow process. First responders and others, equipped
with the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, have saved hundreds of
lives (and experienced considerable trauma along the way). Education
campaigns have increased awareness.

But the chance for timely access to effective treatment continues to
be denied to most British Columbians hoping to deal with their
addictions. In 2012, Premier Christy Clark promised 500 additional
treatment beds by 2017. Despite the urgency, those beds are not in
place. The number of youth-treatment beds has actually declined,
according to data obtained under Freedom of Information requests last
fall.

And methadone and suboxone clinics cannot keep up with demand, in part
because there are too few trained doctors working in the field.

The government was right to declare an emergency. But the response
must show more urgency. The province could increase clinic hours,
allow nurses a larger role and provide incentives for doctors. The
federal government could ease the regulations around methadone
prescriptions.

For Antrobus, and many others, it is a matter of life and death.
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MAP posted-by: Matt