Pubdate: Tue, 20 Dec 2016
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jeff Lee
Page: 3

DRUG OVERDOSE DEATHS SPIKE TO RECORD

B.C. Coroners Service says November results part of huge annual
increase in fatalities

As an unchecked crisis in fentanyl overdoses shows no signs of
abating, at least 128 people died in B.C. in November alone, reaching
775 so far this year, according to Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner for
the B.C. Coroners Service.

In at least 374 of the cases, more than 60 per cent, fentanyl was a
contributing factor in the death, Lapointe said Monday. And with labs
not yet able to detect carfentanil in human tissue, the role of this
even more powerful cousin of fentanyl has yet to be quantified.

The dramatic spike - the largest annual increase since the coroners
service began keeping accurate statistics - comes despite a provincial
health ministry program to equip drug users, community workers and
others with life-saving kits of naloxone.

The drug, which reverses the effects of an overdose from opioids such
as fentanyl, cocaine and heroin, has become the first line of defence
for first responders, community health workers, police, firefighters
and even other drug users.

Since the program began in mid2012 as fentanyl overdoses began to
rise, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control has placed more than 18,700
kits with people in 384 sites, including 56 First Nations. They have
also trained more than 16,400 people how to administer the kit. Nearly
half are users themselves.

But that figure belies the staggering uptake of the kits in 2016
alone.

Between January and October, 13,324 kits were handed out, not
including kits ordered and paid for by the B.C. Ambulance Service,
fire departments, police departments and other responders, the
provincial health ministry said.

Even more significantly, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control is
shipping out at least 10,000 kits every month to the 384 sites and any
locations where there is a potential for opioid overdoses. Some
places, like the Insite safe injection site in downtown Vancouver,
gets a shipment of between 100 and 200 kits a week, said Dr. Jane
Buxton, who runs the BCCDC's Take Home Naloxone program.

The kits, which come with three doses of naloxone, cost about $30 each
and are given free to subscribers.

The PHS Community Services Society restocks its staff kits with 300
doses of naloxone each week, said Dr. Christy Sutherland, the
society's medical director. Staff is constantly being called upon to
administer the drug to residents of the society's 17 residential
buildings, she said.

The naloxone kit program, which the province says has cost more than
$43 million so far, is a tiny upside of a seemingly never-ending
crisis that has worn out first responders and caused harm-reduction
advocates to question the efficacy of treatment programs.

"Why, with all the new harm-reduction measures in place, are we still
losing so many members of our communities to illicit drugs? And why
was the loss so much higher in November?" Lapointe said at a news 
conference.

"Clearly, illicit drugs are becoming increasingly unpredictable and
increasingly perilous. It may be that there has been more toxic
fentanyl than usual circulating or we may be facing the terrifying
possibility of carfentanil being introduced broadly into the illicit
drug stream or the arrival of another particularly lethal analog of
fentanyl."

- - With files from Canadian Press
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt