Last Sunday (January 29), Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould sat down in Vancouver with a roomful of people on the frontlines of B.C.'S fentanyl crisis. Trudeau, who was in Vancouver for the Chinese New Year parade, attended the morning meeting at SUCCESS'S Pender Street offices in Chinatown. There were about a dozen stakeholders there for the private meeting at the social-services agency, including Vancouver's police and fire chiefs. Three points were repeated by just about everyone in attendance, according to interviews with five of those people. [continues 574 words]
Prescribing medicinal heroin to prevent overdose deaths might appear to clash with common sense, but the provincial health officer in B.C. is backing the idea because he says European-style drug treatment programs work. The arrival of the powerful opioid fentanyl drove B.C.'s death toll to a new peak last year of 914 overdose deaths, almost 80 per cent higher than the 510 deaths recorded by the provincial coroner in 2015. Dr. Perry Kendall said he wants support from colleagues in health care and law enforcement to push the province to create treatment programs that prescribe a pharmaceutical-grade version of heroin, called diacetylmorphine. "It may be counterintuitive for people, but they have been shown to improve functioning, improve physical health, improve mental health," said Kendall. "They certainly get people out of illegal drug markets and many of those people have gone on to have relatively stable lives." [continues 312 words]
Editor, The News: I firmly agree with Larry Campbell's statement that "crime rates drop and addicts become more stable when [they receive] heroin from a doctor instead of a dealer or pimp" (Campbell, Boyd, & Culbert, 2009, p. 127). Dr. Martin Schechter of the University of British Columbia, provided Vancouver addicts with the first opportunity to receive medical-grade heroin administered by a doctor after he brought NAOMI (North American Opiate Medication Initiative) to life. He demonstrated that once people were stabilized by these treatments, they were "very orderly" (Campbell et al., 2009, p. 229). [continues 662 words]
Harm-reduction focus oversimplifies problem, writes Michael McCarthy. Breaking news! There is actually a place called hell. No, it's not where you think it is. On a recent trip to Norway I learned that "Hell" is a sleepy rural village. Actually the word means luck, from the overhanging cliff caves in the area known as hellir in old Norse. Gosh, all this time I thought hell was located in the Downtown Eastside. In reality, it is. Hell is found in those DTES alleyways where any hour of the day you can find some poor soul doing the funky chicken, "tweaking" from an overdose on crack cocaine. These days the drug of choice is the opioid fentanyl, which leads to a lot less dancing and lot more dying. The body count is edging towards a thousand a year. [continues 637 words]
The tide is turning on harm reduction. The reins of a new national drug strategy are squarely in the hands of Health Canada. There are positive signs legislators are abandoning ideology for evidence-based policy, and stonewalling for action. Last year, the opioid crisis claimed 916 lives in B.C. alone. The momentum for supervised injection sites builds on other initiatives, including methadone treatment and a growing network of needle-exchange programs, officially around since 1989. Harm reduction measures help decrease health risks for drug users at all stages of addiction and recovery. Measurable outcomes include reduced transmission of HIV and hepatitis C through needle sharing, fewer overdose deaths and greater access to addiction recovery supports. [continues 454 words]
When Ottawa recently announced a multi-pronged strategy to fight the deadly fentanyl crisis - a strategy that includes supervised drug consumption sites - Health Minister Jane Philpott boasted of "our renewed, evidence-based approach to Canada's drug strategy." If Ottawa is so keen on an evidence-based approach to drugs, why did it walk away from mediation aimed at settling a lawsuit calling on the government to provide needle exchanges in prisons? Mediation sessions were scheduled this week but Ottawa's lawyers backed out at the last minute. The lawsuit, brought in part by a former inmate who acquired hepatitis C behind bars, is going forward. [continues 348 words]
Like most of small town America, Southern Indiana was unprepared for the opioid crisis. That's what Sam Quinones said, who is an expert on the roots of America's heroin and prescription drug crisis. "It's bad all over the country, but I would say it's probably particularly unkempt in areas such as Southern Indiana," he said. Smaller towns "never had to deal with the issues that come along with opiate addiction like how hard it is to kick, all the ancillary effects of having an addict in the family, aE& the lying, the destruction of family savings." [continues 820 words]
Another week, another massive study by top doctors and scientists finding limited medicinal value to marijuana. When liberal politicians such as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson claim to be implementing "evidence-based" public policy, I find it odd they have such a blind spot with pot. A new report by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine - The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research - reviewed 10,700 studies on the medicinal qualities of marijuana and concluded there is "conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective" for only three conditions: chronic pain in adults, chemotherapy-induced nausea, and patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity. [continues 414 words]
One woman relied on old needles used by her friend's diabetic husband. Another settled for whatever syringes she could find. But for the first time since they started using drugs several years ago, both women have access to fresh syringes. They are getting them through a needle exchange in Frankfort. "If you can have a new one every time, why wouldn't you?" asked the younger of the two women, who both spoke to the CJ on condition of anonymity for fear of being stigmatized or getting fired. "I think it's awesome that they're doing this. [continues 1730 words]
