In a recent Canadian Public Health Association discussion paper, "A New Approach to Managing Illegal Psychoactive Substances in Canada," the point was made emphatically that our current approach to managing risk is not working. Here are some of its highlights: - - A psychoactive substance is a chemical that changes brain function and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness or behaviour. Societies mitigate the health, social, and economic consequences of the use and misuse of psychoactive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, opioids, amphetamines, cocaine, tranquillizers and sleeping pills in a variety of ways with varying degrees of success. Their effects on population health, however, are often overshadowed by our fascination with the direct effects of substance misuse on individuals [e.g. recent rise in the opioid death rate due to adulteration of the drug supply with fentanyl and its analogues]. Currently, western societies manage illegal psychoactive substances largely through prohibition and criminalization and legal drugs, like tobacco and alcohol, through regulation, restricted availability and price control. The laws and systems initially introduced to control these substances reflected the times ! and prevalent issues of the day, but no longer reflect current scientific knowledge concerning substance-related harms to individuals, families, or communities. [continues 492 words]
Drug use in jail is a reality and reducing harm is vital, say Richard Elliott and Rick Lines. Almost one-third of federal prisoners reported using drugs during the past six months. In December 2016, federal Health Minister Jane Philpott committed her government to a new national drug strategy that reinstates harm reduction as a non-negotiable pillar. It was a welcome announcement, signalling a modest shift away from the last decade's emphasis on prohibition and punishment - policies that continue to kill people who use drugs in Canada. [continues 590 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]
Mark Baratta works with drug users on the front lines of Ontario's opioid epidemic. But as deaths mount, Baratta's story illustrates how far society has to go to end the crisis . . . if it so chooses Like most people who might be called heroes, Mark Baratta shies away from the label. A lean and purposeful man, Baratta has saved 17 people, each on separate occasions. He chalks it up, with a shrug of his shoulders, to keeping his head in the presence of death. [continues 3104 words]
Medical marijuana may assist in keeping addicts off dangerous opioids. The patients at Dr. Mark Ujjainwalla's methadone clinic are trying to beat their addiction to heroin, narcotic painkillers and other opioid drugs, but most of them still smoke pot. He estimates that 90 per cent of his patients at the Recovery Ottawa clinic on Montreal Road already use marijuana, and he's begun writing prescriptions so they can buy it legally. Medical marijuana, used appropriately, can reduce insomnia, anxiety and cravings for opioids, says Ujjainwalla. Marijuana cannot replace methadone or suboxone, the drugs he uses to treat addicts, he says. [continues 1146 words]
Canada is preparing to legalize and regulate possession of marijuana - with a target date of July 1, 2018. It's a long overdue public policy with sound economic and health arguments to back it up, notably: More harm is caused by criminal prohibition and prosecution than the use of marijuana itself; Criminal laws prohibiting possession do not deter use; Decriminalization of possession does not lead to greater use; Decriminalization frees up resources for police and the courts to deal with more serious crimes; [continues 689 words]
In the midst of the fentanyl crisis, a local organization that provides overdose training and harm reduction is bracing for the loss of a major chunk of its funding. ANKORS (AIDS Network Kootenay Outreach and Support Society) was founded in 1992 at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis and provides services around HIV and Hepatitis C, harm reduction and prevention education. Originally established in Castlegar, the organization now has offices in Cranbrook and Nelson, and between the two may soon lose five employees and a significant part of its funding. [continues 1529 words]
Provincial website has list where to find the drug that can temporarily reverse the effects of an overdose WATERLOO REGION - People eager to get a naloxone kit and training on how to use it can now easily search online for local places that stock them. The province has a searchable list of participating pharmacies and community organizations offering for free the medication that can temporarily reverse an opioid overdose. "It's good news for Ontarians. It's progress and hopefully there's more to come," said Michael Parkinson of the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council. [continues 357 words]
TORONTO - The number of Canadians registered to purchase medical marijuana from licensed producers has exploded since the federal commercial-access program was introduced almost four years ago, reaching nearly 130,000 by the end of last year, the most recent Heath Canada figures show. As of Dec. 31, 129,876 Canadians had signed up with the country's cannabis producers, a 32 per cent jump from the 98,460 registered at the end of September and a whopping 1,544 per cent increase from the 7,900 granted access to medicinal cannabis in mid 2014. [continues 574 words]
TORONTO - The number of Canadians registered to purchase medical marijuana from licensed producers has exploded since the federal commercial-access program was introduced almost four years ago, reaching nearly 130,000 by the end of last year, the most recent Heath Canada figures show. As of Dec. 31, 129,876 Canadians had signed up with the country's cannabis producers, a 32 per cent jump from the 98,460 registered at the end of September and a whopping 1,544 per cent increase from the 7,900 granted access to medicinal cannabis in mid-2014. [continues 934 words]
TORONTO - The number of Canadians registered to purchase medical marijuana from licensed producers has exploded since the federal commercial-access program was introduced almost four years ago, reaching nearly 130,000 by the end of last year, the most recent Heath Canada figures show. As of Dec. 31, 129,876 Canadians had signed up with the country's cannabis producers, a 32 per cent jump from the 98,460 registered at the end of September and a whopping 1,544 per cent increase from the 7,900 granted access to medicinal cannabis in mid-2014. [continues 583 words]
WATERLOO REGION - Sally has been taking drugs since her mother introduced her to them when she was 14. Today, the 26-year-old Kitchener woman is on methadone to curb her cravings. But Sally, not her real name, still does illicit drugs like crystal meth. Her drug of choice is crack but last summer while looking for a hit, she bought a "point" of fentanyl and injected it (a point is one-tenth of a gram). She doesn't want to do it again but fears it could be laced in the drugs she usually buys. [continues 1298 words]
As deaths mount, it's time to think the unthinkable and supply users with measured doses of pharmaceutically 'pure' heroin For more than 30 years, until retiring as a physician in Montreal, I cared for and studied people who became infected, sick or died from HIV infection. Now, Canada faces a new epidemic. It is an epidemic of overdose deaths, disease, disability and destitution from fentanyl-adulturated street heroin. Lessons from the HIV epidemic might help us to understand and respond quickly and successfully to this new and seemingly uncontrolled epidemic. [continues 638 words]
Volunteers clean up 1,000 discards a year in a city weighing supervised drug injection site. Tom Cull has more than 1,000 reasons - discarded needles - for London to support a supervised drug injection site. "We pick them up under bridges, along the watercourse, on the (river) banks, in parks," he says. Once a month, from the beginning of April to the start of winter, he and his crew of volunteers with the Thames River Rally pick up garbage along the river in London. [continues 328 words]
Regarding the article "Set up safe needle site in London, study says" (Feb. 9). If London is going ahead with safe injection sites why do we not get a doctor or nurse practitioner to run it with the goal of weaning these people off the drug? Set it up so if they are enrolled in the program they will be safe from prosecution, and if they do not sign up for it they will be prosecuted if caught with it. The ones signed up can sit down with the doctor when they first join and they can figure out together how much they use a day, how many times a day and how much each time. From there the doctor and addict can set up a reduction plan so that each time they come in it can be slightly reduced by so much a day for a week, and then each week after reducing again slightly. [continues 100 words]
Evert Botha promises his "unwavering support" for the project, and plans to lobby to make it a reality Steps are in motion to bring a safe injection site to Prince Albert, as part of a comprehensive plan for treating infectious disease and drug addiction. Councillor Evert Botha plans to push council to lend its approval to the initiative, which he says will reduce crime, take needles off the street and help vulnerable people. "I will be asking my fellow councillors and the mayor that we support the establishment, as a city, of a supervised injection site," he said. [continues 947 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]
Even though supervised injection services have been deemed feasible for Thunder Bay, many questions need to be answered before a facility - - or possibly two - can become a reality. The results of a Supervised Injection Services feasibility study were presented Tuesday. The study recommends the city consider establishing at least two sites in Thunder Bay, one in each of the north and south cores. Coun. Rebecca Johnson, chair of the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy, said public consultation will be required to see if there is support before any potential locations are examined. [continues 844 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]
The overdose crisis, especially in British Columbia, has become an issue of moral panic, and everyone is paying attention. The B.C. Coroner's Report for 2016 revealed a shocking number of deaths from overdose - 914, which far surpassed previous records and is nearly three times the number of deaths from automobile collisions. This crisis impacts us all and it requires a radical shift in the ways all provinces provide health care. Unfortunately, the human and financial toll continues to rise because we continue to view illicit substance use as a moral and criminal issue rather than the healthcare issue it is. As a health-care social worker on the front line, I am lending my voice to those with substance-use disorders, the ostracized and overlooked. [continues 555 words]
