The article Needles the cause, cure (May 23) postulates possible reasons for higher rates of HIV and hepatitis C virus in London. As an organization that advocates with and for people who inject drugs (PWID), we note that, while unsafe injection practices may be a potential driver of these increased rates, it is probably not the only influence. There are multiple social and systemic influences that may not only contribute to the increase of disease, but also contribute to overall diminished health of those who inject drugs. [continues 404 words]
A pilot project operated by Vancouver Coastal Health has found success with a simple detection strip for the notorious opioid Drug users who test their drugs and discover fentanyl are 10 times more likely to reduce their dose, raising the possibility that making such tests widely available could reduce overdoses. That is one finding of a drug checking pilot project at Insite, Vancouver's supervised-injection site, operated by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH). Launched last July, the initiative offers drug users the option of testing their drugs for fentanyl using a simple test strip, which produces results in seconds. [continues 504 words]
A safe-injection site could be coming to Medicine Hat. Though still early in the process, HIV Community Link executive director Leslie Hill says this is something communities around Alberta could be seeing over the course of the next year or so. "Right now we have a researcher in Medicine Hat working on creating a survey to get to drug users," she said. "We are doing this in response to a rise in opioid use across the province and we are trying to be proactive with this." [continues 562 words]
How drug units deal with fentanyl The death toll for fentanyl continues to rise in 2017, with nearly double the number of deaths being reported in the first six weeks of the year. According to Health Canada, from Jan. 1 to Feb, 11, 51 people died from overdosing on fentanyl. In 2016 during the same six weeks, 28 Albertans died as a result of a fentanyl overdose. The drug was first found in St. Albert in 2014 and since then the St. Albert RCMP's drug unit said that currently there is at least one pill found in around 80 per cent of their overall drug cases. [continues 938 words]
WATERLOO REGION - Five years ago, local paramedics responded to one opioid overdose a week. Now the rate is almost two overdoses every day. "Where does it end?" says Robert Crossan, deputy chief of the Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services. The drug at the core of the crisis is fentanyl - a painkiller 80 times stronger than morphine. It's a pain medication prescribed and taken by patients through patches. But 'bootleg' fentanyl is coming in from China, and trace amounts - as small as grains of salt - are being mixed with heroin and cocaine sold on the streets. [continues 1086 words]
The members of the Middlesex-London Board of Health endorsed Thursday evening a motion to take the "next steps" to set up a supervised-injection site for drug users in London. That essentially means determining what the method will be for moving forward with the project. As part of that, there will be a public consultation before setting up any such site, including talking to the people in the chosen neighbourhood, including residents and business. The first part of the three-pronged motion covered accepting a feasibility study. Dr. Gayanne Hovhannisyan, the acting medical officer of health, led the discussion. [continues 68 words]
On Tuesday (February 21), exactly 914 feathers will hang from the trees in Oppenheimer Park. They will symbolize the 914 people who died of an illicit-drug overdose in B.C. in 2016. The feathers will be carved out of wood and as many as possible will bear the name of somebody who died after taking drugs. The Vancouver demonstration is part of a national day of action that is so far planned for seven cities across Canada. In B.C., events are also planned for Victoria and Nanaimo. [continues 559 words]
WATERLOO REGION - A group of parents sit around a small table. Their eyes are red from crying. Nearby are framed photos of the children they have lost to drug overdoses. Among them are Iain Goddard, Brittany Cobbing and Austin Padaric. Janice Walsh-Goddard didn't even know what fentanyl was when she heard it killed her son. Iain Goddard died last May while Janice was in England on vacation. She got the call on the last day of her weeklong trip. [continues 1488 words]
In the late 1990s, Sam Sullivan, today the Liberal MLA for Vancouver-False Creek, paid for a 20-year-old sex worker's heroin habit for a period of three weeks. He was a city councillor at the time. The story was front-page news in 2005, when Sullivan made a successful run for mayor. During the campaign, he refused to apologize for helping the girl purchase drugs. "I had become very angry with a society that would let this lovely young woman degrade herself because our morals wouldn't allow us to accept where she was and help her try to move past it without destroying her life in the process," Sullivan told the Vancouver Courier that year. [continues 702 words]
A startling dissection of drug use in London - with the personal illnesses and public ills exposed - has laid on the table a compelling case for a supervised injection site in the city. But the sticky questions of exactly where the site or sites should go, whether the city can take the other steps necessary to make a site worthwhile, and how crystal meth and fentanyl will play a role remain unanswered. The lead researcher of a study on providing supervised injection in London did have one answer for residents still questioning the sanity of giving people a place to inject their illicit drugs. [continues 725 words]
Amid rising HIV rates and an entrenched needle culture, London researchers will unveil Wednesday a study on the value of a supervised injection site in the city. Researchers interviewed 200 people who are or were injection drug users to assess people's willingness to use the sites and about 20 representatives from health care, law enforcement, government and community organizations to get feedback. "There are several general recommendations based on the results of the study," but no specific direction to any agency or organization, Western University researcher Ayden Scheim said Monday. [continues 377 words]
Finally some good news related to fentanyl. That is, there's now less of the deadly filth on the streets, since the Surrey RCMP recently busted three suspects and seized thousands of doses of illegal drugs. An investigation was launched in November that focused on drug traffickers supplying addicts on 135A Street. Police raids in January removed 4,140 doses of suspected heroin/fentanyl, 521 doses of methamphetamine and 410 doses of crack cocaine. It's no secret what a horrible toll deadly opioids like fentanyl have taken on our local streets, particularly that forsaken strip of road in Whalley. [continues 116 words]
Calling someone a junkie was once the norm, but many people who use illicit drugs and those who treat them say the word addict is just as stigmatizing. At the Crosstown Clinic, which provides pharmaceutical heroin treatment for people hooked on the opioid, someone has crossed out "addicts" on a notice posted by a group called the Addicts Union and substituted "patients." Dr. Scott MacDonald, lead physician at Crosstown, said the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders no longer lists the term addict. [continues 519 words]
Reducing demand for harmful drugs, working with St. Paul's Hospital to help people with mental health issues and making better use of technology are just three of the Vancouver Police Department's goals for the next five years. On Monday morning, Chief Const. Adam Palmer revealed the department's new five-year strategic plan. By focusing on the things that make people feel unsafe, the department recognizes that there are a myriad of causes. When a reporter at the press conference mentioned the "war on drugs", Palmer said that is an American term that no police departments in Canada use. [continues 410 words]
Editor: I think the development of more powerful street drugs (i.e. fentanyl, meth, etc.) of course is driven by the profits available for cheaper more powerful lethal drugs. I think it may be time to look at legalizing drugs so we can better control them. Drugs at one time in world history were legal and the use of them was far less widespread. Coca Cola at one time contained cocaine (hence the name coke). The consumption of alcohol during Prohibition was far more widespread than when it was legal. There were many deaths from badly produced by unregulated producers of alcohol or antifreeze-laced cocktails. The growth of gangland crime and political corruption was rampant. [continues 107 words]
I spent Christmas 2015 sitting at my kitchen table, smartphone in hand, tracking overdose deaths across Greater Victoria. Eight people had died in seven days, three in the preceding 24 hours. Two of them died on the street, one in a parkade, the rest at home. This included Miranda, the 22-year-old daughter of one of my co-workers at the Victoria Police Department. She died in her bedroom a few hours after opening Christmas presents with her mom and stepdad. [continues 916 words]
Arguing that smoking dope is safer than drinking booze is akin to stating that getting shot in the leg is preferable to taking one in the head. Yet that's the argument often used by pro-pot crusaders, as we debate the minutiae about what age should Canadians be allowed to legally buy weed. Well, folks, kids can already get a hold of dope with little effort. Don't get me wrong; let's legalize the stuff. In fact, we should decriminalize every other drug, because the entire campaign to treat addiction as a matter of legality rather than mental health is among the deadliest and costliest exercises society has tried. [continues 576 words]
I believe that people who own houses in Vancouver, or anywhere in Canada should not pay extra taxes due to a fentanyl crisis. Has the government actually gone door-to-door to ask people/homeowners if it's OK to raise taxes for this crisis? To me it's a way to support the addicts to keep them supplied with this crisis instead of the government actually looking at the real problem. The government is supplying the addicts with clean needles and supplies to keep them going with their addictions and not helping with the problem. They are saying it's OK to do heroin, cocaine and meth by supplying them with the needles and help kits. [continues 65 words]
Hospital should own its role, and help foot bill, in fallout from faulty drug tests, CAS head says Children's aid societies are calling on the Hospital for Sick Children to "step up" and own the role it played in the Motherisk scandal that saw faulty drug and alcohol hair tests used in thousands of child protection cases. Mary Ballantyne, executive director of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS), said Sick Kids, which housed the discredited Motherisk Drug Testing Laboratory, should do more to assist in the significant efforts underway to deliver justice to those affected. [continues 867 words]
Calgary's police chief is open to introducing supervised facilities for drug users, so long as such programs are part of a larger strategy to lower addiction rates and address problems that accompany drug dependency, such as crime and joblessness. "It always makes police chiefs look resistant when they say no to these things. My answer has been: 'Sure, as long as it is part of a better strategy,' " Calgary Police Service Chief Roger Chaffin said in an interview this week. [continues 912 words]
