The union representing Canada's border agents is hoping money allocated to combatting the country's overdose crisis will go toward hiring full-time chemists to screen for fentanyl and other deadly drugs at major mailing centres and ports of entry. Most fentanyl shipments coming into Canada originate in China and first arrive at the Vancouver International Mail Centre. A pilot project launched last fall at the facility sees chemists conduct on-site testing and analysis of items suspected to contain fentanyl in a safe examination area where ventilation is controlled. [continues 394 words]
Structural changes are required to clamp down on the unregulated private lending networks that drug traffickers are using to launder their illicit gains, a Simon Fraser University criminologist says. A recent Globe and Mail investigation identified people connected to the local fentanyl trade who are also private lenders, using Vancouver-area real estate to clean their cash. Neil Boyd, a criminology professor at SFU, said the complexity of these private lending networks and similar white-collar crimes make them notoriously hard to prosecute. [continues 640 words]
Opioid drug use findings raise concerns about effectiveness of substitution treatment A study of drug use in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside concluded with 100 per cent of participants who used illicit opioids testing positive for fentanyl, raising concerns that higher opioid tolerance from the powerful synthetic drug could threaten the effectiveness of substitution treatment. The five-month study, led by University of British Columbia psychiatry professor William Honer, involved 237 high-risk participants. Of those, about half used opioids, either prescribed (such as methadone and buprenorphine) or nonprescribed (such as illicit heroin). Severe mental-health issues also played a significant role: About half had psychosis and one-third had mood disorders, illnesses that increase the likelihood of using illicit drugs. [continues 459 words]
Kendall ends term by calling on province to think further outside the box, its comfort zones British Columbia's provincial health officer concluded his last day in the role with a call to further push the envelope in responding to the province's overdose crisis, which new numbers show killed more than 1,400 people last year. Perry Kendall said on Wednesday the year-end tally of 1,422 illicit-drug overdose deaths - a figure that works out to a rate of 29.6 per 100,000 population and will grow as outstanding death investigations are completed - show that B.C. is "still in the midst of a persistent and continuing epidemic of unintentional poisoning deaths. [continues 975 words]
Canada is on pace to lose more than 4,000 people to opioid-related deaths this year - with about one-third of them in British Columbia, according to new figures from the Public Health Agency of Canada. The grim update was in a national report the federal government released on Monday. The report described the country's opioid crisis as "serious and growing," devastating families and communities nationwide. "Tragically, the data released today indicate that the crisis continues to worsen, despite the efforts from all levels of government and partners to reverse the trend," chief public health officer Theresa Tam and Nova Scotia chief medical officer of health Robert Strang, co-chairs of Canada's special advisory committee on opioids, said in a statement. [continues 517 words]
Lessons are still being digested after a lethal batch of opioids in October put emergency workers to the test The first warning came mid-afternoon on a Thursday in late October, from a client at a downtown Victoria HIV/AIDS and harm-reduction facility. It was the day after "cheque day," when social-assistance payments are issued in B.C. - a period linked to an increase in overdoses and other related harms. But even with that factored in, front-line workers were getting the sense that things were worse than usual. [continues 1201 words]
Province widens availability of device for detecting the presence of fentanyl; medical health officer says lives will be saved British Columbia has expanded a program allowing people to check their street drugs for fentanyl before using, becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to facilitate the experimental testing on a wide scale. Health officials have also purchased a device that detects both the presence and quantities of deadly adulterants and can provide a more detailed analysis of not just fentanyl, but other chemically similar drugs being cut into the local supply. [continues 684 words]
Health and legal experts are urging caution about the idea of charging fentanyl dealers with manslaughter, saying such a move would do little to deter sellers and could instead punish those who are already struggling with substance-use disorders. B.C. Solicitor-General Mike Farnworth mentioned the idea to reporters at an unrelated event last week, saying it was raised at a recent meeting of federal and provincial public safety ministers. "We strongly believe that if you're dealing fentanyl, you're dealing death, and you should be facing much more severe penalties such as manslaughter charges," Mr. Farnworth said. [continues 727 words]
During first ministers meetings, Premier hints that B.C., unlike Ontario, may leverage dispensaries in its legalized drug regime Premier John Horgan has hinted again that British Columbia's growing number of illegal marijuana dispensaries could have a role to play when recreational use of the drug is made legal next summer. Mr. Horgan, who in the past has voiced support for bringing existing operators on board, seemed to suggest on Tuesday that B.C.'s robust marijuana industry means the province is already well positioned to begin legal retail sales by the federal government's July 1 target. [continues 334 words]
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has issued recommendations on tackling North America's opioid crisis, calling for the immediate expansion of harm reduction services, the decriminalization and regulation of currently illicit drugs and an initiative to allow interested cities to de facto decriminalize as federal debates over drug policy continue. The position paper, to be released on Monday, comes in advance of the final report of the White House opioid commission, led by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, due out in November. [continues 699 words]
A federal New Democratic leadership hopeful has pledged to make it party policy to decriminalize petty drug possession if he is elected leader, supporting calls by an increasing number of health officials who say it would help lift the stigma around addiction. Jagmeet Singh made his pledge on Sunday at an NDP leadership debate in Vancouver, a city that had recorded nearly 250 suspected overdose deaths by the end of August. Across British Columbia, 876 people died of illicit-drug overdoses from January through July of this year. [continues 765 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]
Province's new plan to fight overdose deaths requires coroners to log extensive information on victims A new mandate in British Columbia to collect comprehensive information on all fatal overdose victims aims to provide a fulsome look at why people use illicit drugs - from past medical issues to economic status - - to help curb problematic drug use and prevent overdose deaths. The BC Coroners Service's new Unintentional Drug Overdose Protocol requires coroners to fill out an 11-page document for every person who dies of a suspected overdose. The data gathering is the most ambitious in the country. Last week, B.C. released data showing 780 people died of opioid overdoses between January and June this year. The province has been the hardest hit by the opioid crisis that is rapidly spreading across Canada. [continues 578 words]
Two sites in the Vancouver region have become the first in Canada to receive federal approval to allow users to snort or swallow drugs while under supervision. Until now, supervised drug-consumption sites have been limited to injection drug users. Two sites have been operating in Vancouver for more than a decade, while others have recently received approval in the Vancouver area, Montreal and Toronto. The two sites approved to expand services to non-injectable drugs are in Surrey, south of Vancouver. The public SafePoint supervised-consumption site, located on what's known as the "Surrey Strip," opened three weeks ago. The Quibble Creek Sobering and Assessment Centre began offering supervised consumption for clients one week ago. [continues 565 words]
A renowned HIV/AIDS clinic in Vancouver that helped pave the way in harm reduction by first offering supervised-injection service 14 years ago now wants to treat opioid addiction with injectable drugs. Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Health, Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care in March to offer injectable opioid-assisted treatment at its facility in Vancouver's downtown West End neighbourhood, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under Freedom of Information legislation. [continues 541 words]
The federal government has approved three supervised-injection sites for Toronto, further expanding a contentious harm reduction service in its latest effort to counter a surging number of overdose deaths in Canada. Illicit fentanyl and chemically similar drugs have caused fatal overdoses to skyrocket. Opioid overdoses in Ontario increased 11 per cent in the first half of 2016 compared with the same period the year before, B.C. is on pace to have 1,400 deaths this year, and fentanyl-related fatalities in Alberta in the first quarter of 2017 are 60 per cent higher than in the same period last year. [continues 575 words]
Ottawa broadens overdose-prevention program, approving three more locations for Vancouver region, one for Montreal The federal government has approved four more supervised-injection sites - three in the Vancouver region and one in Montreal - in its latest effort to combat an escalating overdose crisis across the country. The new round of approvals brings the number of federally sanctioned sites to nine, significantly expanding what was once a radical intervention limited to a single location in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Such facilities, run by local health agencies, allow users to consume illicit drugs in the presence of health workers who can intervene in the event of an overdose. [continues 585 words]
One measure being sought by big-city leaders - expanded heroin-assisted treatment programs - finds support from Vancouver police Canada's big-city mayors are calling for the expedited approval of new supervised drug-consumption sites, improved data collection and the expansion of unconventional therapies, such as heroin-assisted treatment, to address a national overdose crisis that shows no signs of abating. The formal recommendations from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' task force on the opioid crisis come as the Vancouver Police Department issues its own call for expanded addictions programs, including heroin-assisted treatment. [continues 671 words]
A piece of legislation that makes it easier to open supervised injection sites has become law, replacing Harper-era regulations that effectively stalled the harm reduction service as overdose deaths climbed. Under Bill C-37, which received royal assent on Thursday, agencies wanting to open a supervised-injection site must meet five streamlined conditions, down from 26 under the previous Respect for Communities Act. The Liberal government tabled the bill in December. It received final approval on Wednesday, with minor amendments. [continues 531 words]
A pilot project operated by Vancouver Coastal Health has found success with a simple detection strip for the notorious opioid Drug users who test their drugs and discover fentanyl are 10 times more likely to reduce their dose, raising the possibility that making such tests widely available could reduce overdoses. That is one finding of a drug checking pilot project at Insite, Vancouver's supervised-injection site, operated by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH). Launched last July, the initiative offers drug users the option of testing their drugs for fentanyl using a simple test strip, which produces results in seconds. [continues 504 words]
