Pubdate: Tue, 20 Dec 2016
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Jeff Lee
Page: A5

B.C.'S ILLICIT DRUG OVERDOSE DEATHS HIT 128 IN NOVEMBER

As a 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, the 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 in the deaths 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, just 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. It has 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 this year.
Between January and October, 13,324 kits were handed out to users,
family members, community service providers and health volunteers, 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, get
a shipment of 100 to 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.

The naloxone kit program, which the province says has cost more than
$43 million so far, is a tiny upside in a seemingly neverending crisis
that has worn out first responders and caused harm reduction advocates
to question the efficacy of treatment programs.

"Clearly, illicit drugs are becoming increasingly unpredictable and
increasingly perilous," Lapointe said. "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
analogue of fentanyl."

- - With a file from The Canadian Press
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MAP posted-by: Matt