Pubdate: Thu, 01 Mar 2012
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Elizabeth Payne
Note: Elizabeth Payne is a member of the Ottawa Citizen's editorial board.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

PLENTY OF BLAME FOR THE DRUG CRISIS

There are only so many ways the people of remote Northern Ontario can 
say "help us" before they begin to wonder whether anyone is listening.

On Wednesday, doctors, nurses, addictions experts and First Nations 
officials again pleaded with the federal government for urgent help 
dealing with the prescription drug crisis engulfing remote 
communities, especially now that OxyContin has been delisted by the 
Ontario government.

"We have a public health catastrophe on our hands and no one is 
stepping up to take responsibility," Nishnawbe Aski First Nation 
Deputy Grand Chief Mike Metatawabin told a press conference in 
Toronto. "Our communities have minimal access to medical services to 
help cope with withdrawal symptoms. Our people have a right to timely 
and effective health care."

But that help, if it is coming from the federal government which 
oversees health care on reserves, is proving painfully, even dangerously, slow.

The result, say First Nations health officials, is that the majority 
of addicts in remote northern communities (it is estimated there are 
more than 9,000 in the Sioux Lookout Zone alone with a population of 
25,000) still have little access to addiction and detox treatment. 
Without urgent help, First Nations and health officials predict a 
mass withdrawal crisis at some of the remote communities where most 
adults are addicted to Oxycontin and other prescription painkillers.

There is potential help for the desperate situation - a detox drug 
called Suboxone that is approved by Health Canada under the 
Non-insured Health Benefits program of the First Nations and Inuit 
Health Branch. But First Nations health officials say most requests 
for the drug since the beginning of the year have not been approved.

Since January 2011, Health Canada says 145 people from northern 
Ontario have used the drug Suboxone. An additional 1,614 were 
approved for methadone coverage. An additional 68 requests for the 
drug are under review.

Suboxone is intended for people unable to take methadone for health 
reasons but Health Canada also considers applications from those who 
live in remote communities where methadone is not available. But the 
approval process is slow. Health Canada says it is trying to speed up 
the system of approving the drug on a case-by-case basis. That is 
encouraging, but far from the urgent help that is required.

When residents of Northern Ontario were threatened by forest fires 
last summer they received emergency help getting away from the fire 
as well as places to stay and health care. The Oxycontin crisis 
requires a similar urgent response but it has trickled, rather than rushed, in.

Addicts who want to get off drugs - especially when, as in some 
communities, they make up the majority, should get help, quickly. All 
addicts in remote northern reserves should get detox treatment and 
addiction support. Communities struggling with the addiction crisis 
need more doctors and nurses. That can be done, and should be done 
with Suboxone approvals for everyone who needs it, along with medical 
and counselling support.

The federal government proudly wages a war on drugs - something the 
omnibus crime bill has stepped up - even as growing numbers of 
experts warn it is a wrong-headed policy. This week a group including 
a former Supreme Court judge and the former leaders of Brazil and 
Switzerland, all part of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, sent a 
letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper warning that corruption, 
organized crime and violence are all consequences of marijuana prohibition.

Despite its stance on drugs, the government has been oddly silent on 
the prescription drug abuse scourge which caused Ontario Health 
Minister Deb Matthews to recently delist Oxycontin and the 
formulation that is replacing it, called OXYNEO.

The federal government, which is responsible for drug approval, 
played a direct role in the introduction of Oxycontin and has an 
important leadership role to play now, especially since it is 
directly responsible for health care in the worst affected part of 
the country. The province also needs to offer urgent help to remote 
northern communities.

Without quick action, problems in northern Ontario will worsen. Many 
fear other drugs will replace Oxycontin as its supplies dwindle. 
There have already been reports of heroin in some of the remote 
fly-in communities.

Many people bear some responsibility for the mess that Oxycontin has 
left in Ontario - where the drug was prescribed at four times the 
rate of other provinces. But the federal government must lead when it 
comes to the disaster that is unfolding in Ontario's North.

If the federal government is really concerned about drugs, it should 
shift its attention from locking up people in possession of six or 
more marijuana plants and wake up to the cries for help coming from 
northern Ontario.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom