Helen Jennens knows first-hand the devastation drug overdoses bring to families. In 2011, Jennens' eldest son Rian died from a prescription drug overdose. Five years later, she lost her second son Tyler to a fentanyl overdose. Jennens, in partnership with the local Moms Stop the Harm group, organized a drug overdose awareness day at Evangel Church in Kelowna on Thursday. "It is to commemorate the lives we've lost and give them dignity . . . while raising awareness," said Jennens. "Unless you're touched by it, you don't understand it (and) you don't have the desire to understand. We are losing lives at an alarming rate." [continues 295 words]
Cheryl Guardiero should have spent Thursday celebrating her son's 30th birthday. Instead, she attended an International Overdose Awareness Day vigil in Nanaimo, her boy now among the dead for whom they grieved. Brett Colton Mercer was born in Nanaimo on Aug. 31, 1987, to loving parents who eventually had five children. He died Aug. 19, 2017 of an accidental drug overdose, alone in a motel room in Hope, where he had recently landed a job with an oil and gas firm. [continues 812 words]
'People are dying in Northern Ontario and in our community with regularity' from opioids Drug deaths are now happening at an alarming pace in Sudbury. "It's not just in Vancouver," said Lisa Toner, community outreach coordinator with the Reseau Access Network. "People are dying in Northern Ontario and in our community with regularity. It's not once a month - it's weekly, is my experience this summer." Toner, who has worked in addictions outreach for a decade, said her sense of the escalating crisis has lately been confirmed by people in the city's medical field. [continues 875 words]
High Hopes offers pot to help prevent overdoses Tuesday, August 29, 2017 A community organization in Vancouver has started offering people marijuana as an alternative to deadly street drugs. Struggling to contain a fentanyl overdose crisis that has already killed 232 people in the city this year - more than the 231 deaths in all of 2016 - the High Hopes Foundation has been operating for a month now in the Downtown Eastside. Its goal: to link drug users with community resources, going so far as to give them marijuana as a substitute for hard drugs. [continues 442 words]
Ottawa says it has no plans to consider decriminalizing hard drugs, such as heroin, despite calls from local politicians, health officials and experts who argue such radical action is needed to combat the overdose epidemic that first hit British Columbia and is now a national crisis. Vancouver's mayor became the latest person to advocate for this shift in drug policy after new statistics showed his city had already surpassed last year's overdose death toll of 231 people. But a spokesperson for federal Health Minister Jane Philpott says Canada is focused on legalizing cannabis not decriminalizing other, more deadly illicit drugs. [continues 686 words]
Ontario caregivers say action would let government release additional funding More than 700 health care workers from across Ontario are calling on the province to declare the opioid crisis an emergency, saying they're overwhelmed by too many dying patients and too few resources. Doing so would allow the government to release additional funding for more front-line workers and rapidly approve programs to help those suffering from addictions, says the group of doctors, nurses and frontline workers from 55 Ontario communities. [continues 514 words]
Event aims to break stigma around overdose and drug use About 75 Cape Bretoners gathered at Wentworth Park Bandshell on Thursday to pay tribute to loved ones who died by drug overdose or who are struggling with addiction. Tears flowed and people could be heard quietly sobbing and sniffing during the Overdose Awareness Day event, especially when the names of people who died of drug overdoses were being called out. Antoinette Murphy, who lost her son to an overdose five months ago, was there with her three daughters and a granddaughter. [continues 545 words]
For the past several months, a group of frontline workers, illicit-drug users and parents have met to discuss how they can better inform the public on the one thing that unites them: The overdose crisis. "It's such a diverse mix of people, but we've all been affected," said Leslie McBain, a founding member of Moms Stop the Harm. She lost her only son, Jordan Miller, to an opioid overdose in 2014. She has helped support other parents and has become a respected advocate at all levels of government. [continues 699 words]
Re: Decriminalizing drugs no fix for opioid crisis, Aug. 19 I wonder if Mohammed Adam has done any in-depth research into the proposal by Ontario and Ottawa Public Health to decriminalize possession and use of illegal drugs. Whilst this plan seems to be counter-intuitive, it also appears the long-term effects on law, order and the health of a marginalized population are positive and, indeed, life-affirming. In Portugal's case, it appears significant health and social services back up the move to legalization. Safe-injection sites, social workers visiting the homeless, and no court time taken up by people found possessing small amounts of street or prescription drugs all create a benefit to the addicts and society in general. Admittedly, the opioid crisis adds a whole other dimension to the situation, but should not stand in the way of serious consideration of a solution that offers hope and dignity to many who are unable to get out of their addictions. Howard Clark, Ottawa [end]
The revenue from legal marijuana sales will be used to address public health and addictions issues. I'm talking about marijuana in case anyone is confused by that brash opening statement. With the federal government looking at doing just that by 2018, I'm going to go on the record and say I personally am all for it because of the economic activity involved in the decision. Legalization could add as much as five billion dollars a year in tax revenues to the federal and provincial governments. [continues 396 words]
B.C.'s medical health officer declared a public health emergency on April 14, 2016 in response to high numbers of drug overdoses and deaths. Overdoses continue to rise and have so far more than doubled this year. On August 30, ANKORS (AIDS Network, Outreach and Support Society) and a group of peers with lived experience R.E.D.U.N. (Rural Empowered Drug Users Network) are organizing a booth to promote awareness regarding drug overdose. This is in recognition of International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31. [continues 336 words]
Overdose crisis linked to prohibition, expert says Vancouver In 2001, Doug MacPherson developed the City of Vancouver's Four Pillars drug strategy, a policy that emphasized concepts like harm reduction (such as safe injection sites) as well as addictions prevention, treatment and drug trafficking enforcement. The deadly overdose crisis shows no sign of stopping. Earlier this week, Vancouver reported that at 232 deaths in 2017, the city has already surpassed 2016's entire total. MacPherson is now turning his attention to a "total rethink" of Canadian drug strategy and is calling for what he calls "the legal regulation" of all drugs. Metro spoke to MacPherson about political risk and what it takes to move controversial policies into the mainstream. MacPherson was recently awarded the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy from Simon Fraser University. He'll deliver a lecture on drug policy after receiving the award on Oct. 10. [continues 463 words]
It's little more than a table with three chairs and three yellow needle-disposal boxes crammed into a corner of Toronto Public Health's downtown addiction clinic. But it's now a front line in the city's fight against a wave of opioid overdose deaths. At 4 p.m. on Monday, Toronto opened its first officially sanctioned supervised drug-use site. The facility will allow those addicted to heroin or other substances to get high under the watchful eye of a nurse who can intervene in the event of overdoses, which are rising as street drugs are increasingly likely to be laced with the potent opioid fentanyl. [continues 546 words]
People with brain injury are far more likely to have many issues, yet they're overlooked I applaud health officer Dr. Richard Stanwick's forward thinking in addressing an emergent opioid-overdose situation that has gripped British Columbia. I agree there is an immediate need to take pressure off the system and to prevent further deaths from occurring. Opening a safe consumption site might be a large piece of the puzzle, but it is only one piece. It addresses the tragic outcome of a big problem, but it won't eradicate the problem itself. [continues 695 words]
Nearly two years after it was first announced, a sweeping inquest into drug deaths at an Ontario correctional facility has been scheduled to begin in January. The highly anticipated probe, which will examine the drug-related deaths of eight male inmates of the Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre between 2012 and 2016, is set to be one of the largest-scale inquests in the province's history. It is scheduled to begin Jan. 2 and last about 30 days. The goal of an inquest is to identify ways to prevent similar deaths in the future. Thousands of people are dying across Canada each year in an opioid crisis - bringing added urgency to the perennial issue of drugs in correctional facilities. Four inmates died of suspected overdoses at the Hamilton jail since the inquest was announced in August, 2015. [continues 748 words]
232 people have died so far this year The number of suspected overdose deaths in Vancouver this year has already surpassed last year's total. So far this year, the city has seen 232 overdose deaths and is on pace for more than 400 deaths. In all of 2016, there were 231 overdose deaths in Vancouver. Provincially, 780 people died in the first six months of 2017. In 2016, it took until November to reach 755 deaths, at the time an alarmingly high number. [continues 267 words]
The BC Centre for Disease Control issued a bold set of recommendations to address the province's unparalleled overdose crisis that includes providing drug users with clean opioids to take home and inject or allowing them to grow their own opium. The recommendations, if adopted, would push British Columbia closer to essentially legalizing and regulating the use of drugs beyond marijuana - something many of the province's top drug policy and public-health experts have called for. It has taken on a new urgency, they say, with fentanyl's domination of the illicit drug supply, which has led to a dramatic surge in overdose deaths. [continues 639 words]
B.C. is heading for another record year for fentanyl overdose deaths. Despite making Naloxone antidote kits widely available, the death rate is up 88 per cent over last year, which was also a record year. Last year, according to figures available online, B.C. had 935 deaths from drug overdoses. This year, the province had 780 deaths by the end of June. If the rate continues, the province will hit 1,400 deaths by the end of the year. But in the welter of data, I find two facts interesting. [continues 685 words]
B.C. is heading for another record year for fentanyl overdose deaths. Despite making Naloxone antidote kits widely available, the death rate is up 88 per cent over last year, which was also a record year. Last year, according to figures available online, B.C. had 935 deaths from drug overdoses. This year, the province had 780 deaths by the end of June. If the rate continues, the province will hit 1,400 deaths by the end of the year. But in the welter of data, I find two facts interesting. [continues 465 words]
The deadly painkiller fentanyl, thrust under a spotlight by a rare warning by three health agenices and city police, isn't the only dangerous street drug raising eyebrows in London. Heroin is also showing up, in levels-those who work with addicts say they haven't seen before. One agency blames the spike on the province tightening the prescription drugs it covers under a program for people on social assistance and seniors, which has driven some users to heroin instead. "I've never known it (heroin) here. Now it is," said Karen Burton, needle and syringe program coordinator at Regional HIV/AIDS Connection in London, whose work includes a drug needle exchange program. "Heroin is here and I don't see it disappearing anytime soon." [continues 630 words]