Pubdate: Thu, 10 Aug 2017
Source: Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2017 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.ottawasun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.ottawasun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author: Elizabeth Payne
Page: 5

WHITE HIGH ON NEW OPIOID EXCHANGE

Former Ottawa police chief and current senator Vern White is
applauding an opioid replacement program being set up by Ottawa Inner
City Health. He has been calling for similar programs across the country.

White planned to contact Wendy Muckle, the executive director of the
non-profit health agency that works with Ottawa's homeless. "I am
going to congratulate her on being willing to take on the bigger
discussion around addiction," White said.

"I guarantee this will make a difference in terms of crime."

In a letter to White, the head of the Canadian Police Association, Tom
Stamatakis, said his organization also supports the "pharmaceutica,
medical response" to addiction offered in opioid replacement therapy.

"We believe this medical response will better serve the addict, but as
well work toward protecting the community that has been impacted by
the criminal activity surrounding illegal and illicit drug
trafficking."

The plan, being rolled out quickly and quietly in response to the
worsening fentanyl crisis, was revealed last week. It is expected to
begin in September. It will include a supervised consumption site in
which injection drug users will be prescribed Dilaudid, which they
will inject or consume on site under supervision.

White, who long criticized supervised injection sites in which drug
users bring their own illegal drugs, has been pushing for such sites
to offer prescribed opioids as an alternative to street drugs,
including morphine, suboxone and Dilaudid or prescription heroin.

He introduced an amendment to the federal government's bill on
supervised injection sites this spring. His amendment, as passed by
the Senate, would have forced all supervised injection sites to offer
opioid replacement therapies such as prescription heroin or
hydromorphone, methadone or suboxone. By the time it was folded into
the law, the amendment made it optional, rather than mandatory, for
sites to offer the alternatives, which White said does not go far enough.

He said the opioid replacement program coming to Ottawa, only the
second of its kind in Canada, should be emulated across the country.

Such programs, including methadone and suboxone clinics, remove the
addicts from committing crimes every day in order to pay for drugs, he
said. Under the program being set up at the Shepherds of Good Hope and
run by Inner City Health, street drug users will be offered Dilaudid,
also known as hydromorphone, to be consumed on-site, to stop them from
committing crimes or endangering themselves to obtain drugs.
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