Substance Use News provides a monthly collection of news and resources on the social, medical and political responses to the toxic drug supply crisis and information about alcohol harm reduction. Info for People Who Use Substances: get the latest alerts, and tips on how to stay safe from Toward the Heart. Visit our Substance Use and Harm Reduction page for more resources.
In the News
BC announces universal coverage for medication to treat opioid addiction
The province said during the 2021-22 fiscal year 32,882 people received coverage of OAT treatment medications through PharmaCare, BC’s publicly funded program that helps residents pay for some prescription drugs. A further 1,638 patients paid out of pocket for the medications. Under the new rules, those patients will now be 100 per cent covered for OAT medication costs under another provincial coverage plan. “Removing these cost barriers to medication-assisted treatment will help more people stabilize their lives, prevent deaths and stay on their journey to wellness,” said Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jennifer Whiteside.
Joint Statement from the Co-Chairs of the Special Advisory Committee on the Epidemic of Opioid Overdoses – Latest National Data on Substance-Related Harms
Co-chairs of the federal, provincial, and territorial Special Advisory Committee on the Epidemic of Opioid Overdoses—Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, and Dr. Yves Léger, New Brunswick’s Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health—issued the following statement on the release of the latest surveillance data on opioid and stimulant-related harms in Canada from January 2016 to December 2022.
Death toll for toxic drugs in B.C. surpasses 1,000 in first 5 months of the year
Illicit drug toxicity is now the leading cause of death in BC for people between the ages of 10 to 59, surpassing homicides, suicides, accidents and natural diseases combined. Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe says expedited testing shows the powerful opioid fentanyl was present in almost nine of 10 results, nearly double the rate of methamphetamine and cocaine.
They had access to a safe supply as health-care workers. That’s why they want the same for others
BC declared a public health emergency in 2016 when deaths due to toxic drugs began to rapidly increase. Since then, more than 11,000 people have died from using poisonous drugs. During that time and even before, the idea of a safe supply of drugs to offer users in order to protect them from taking unknown substances has become political and highly divisive. “If this is an emergency, what do you do in emergencies? You triage,” McLean said. “You gotta look to what’s happening right now and deal with the people who are dying first. Let’s start by keeping people alive.”
Winnipeg man says he wanted federal prison sentence because of better addiction supports
While the judge had the final say, Jason Walmsley identified the place he felt he could get the best support to stay away from drugs and crime. “How can federal prison be the best option out of all these other options?” That’s a question society needs to ask, says Katharina Maier, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Winnipeg who specializes in punishment, prisoner re-entry and drug use.
Squamish harm reduction services are working
Squamish’s Street Reach is a tri-weekly meet-up in which volunteers walk around downtown and connect with people who are experiencing homelessness in an effort to build connections and relationships.
BC Coroner says hydromorphone playing no ‘significant’ role in toxic drug deaths
“To date, neither hydromorphone nor xylazine are present in any significant numbers,” BC’s Chief Coroner Lapointe said in a press conference on Monday June 5. “Fentanyl remains the main and most consistent and deadly driver of this public health emergency.”
Growing calls for BC to have naloxone on construction sites
All construction sites in Ontario must have a naloxone kits on-site beginning Thursday June 1, amd some industry leaders in BC are calling for the same requirements to be implemented on the west coast. “This is a problem that happens in our communities. It’s not just construction workers, but certainly, we’re mindful that the demographic is similar. The toxicity of these drugs is exceptionally lethal. And we want to make every effort to make our workers aware that this is out there,” says Rory Kumula, CEO of Vancouver Island Construction Association.
StatCan report found marginalization and unhappiness are risk factors as large number of high school students use substances
For most substances all genders had similar consumption habits, but transgender, gender diverse and/or questioning students jumped ahead of their cis peers when it came to taking illegal drugs or pharmaceuticals to get high. Alcohol is still, by far, the main substance used by teenagers, with 39 per cent of kids saying they’d drank in the last year. On average kids are trying their first drink at 13 and one in five students reported having five or more drinks at a time, which is considered high-risk drinking behaviour.
BC program to help people with overdose-related brain injuries a first in Canada
The Cognitive Assessment and Rehabilitation for Substance Use program provides specialized supports for people who use substances including opioids and alcohol. By working with psychiatrists, neuropsychologists and occupational therapists, a patient can grasp their new needs and limitations, improving their quality of life while increasing their opportunities for mental health and substance use therapies.
Advocacy, Research and Education
Addressing Federal Politicians on “Support. Don’t Punish.” Global Day of Action
June 26 was “Support. Don’t Punish” Global Day of Action, and PAN joined many groups across Canada to call for the federal government’s work toward solutions and remind policy makers at all levels that standards, policies, programs, and projects must respect human rights, which is the spirit of “Support. Don’t Punish.” Additionally, these same standards, policies, programs, and projects must be viewed through and shaped by an Indigenous rights lens in order to be truly culturally responsive.
Let evidence, not opinion, guide harm reduction policy and practice in Canada’s drug poisoning crisis
The drug poisoning crisis is often referred to as the opioid crisis, but it is all illicit substances, including stimulants, that are tainted with fentanyl, benzodiazepines and other dangerous ingredients, increasing the risk of harm, especially overdose. The poisoning of the unregulated drug supply, especially in Canada, is a public health crisis that deserves a high priority for the integration of evidence into policy and practice.
Fentanyl Patches Are Saving My Life. We Need to Make Them Accessible
In this spectrum of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), I’ve tried practically everything I’ve had access to: methadone; Methadose; Suboxone; Sublocade. None of them kept me off the unregulated fentanyl supply, because none of them were fentanyl. In British Columbia, fentanyl-based safer supply options have emerged since the onset of the COVID pandemic. Transdermal fentanyl patches were followed by take-home powdered fentanyl, sufentanil and fentora tablets. But this hasn’t been the case in other provinces.
The State of Safe Supply
To keep people away from the toxic street supply you need to provide the right substances and right potency to fully replace what they were taking before, safe supply advocate Guy Felicella says. But that can be tricky for a number of reasons. First, someone might not know what they’re buying from the illicit market. Most street drugs look the same, taste the same and seem the same but can contain several different substances with wildly different potencies, Felicella says.
Recovery Machine Podcast
The Recovery Machin podcast is a show hosted by two former healthcare workers who have lived experience with drug addiction. Episodes discuss mental health, addiction treatment options, tools for recovery, drug policy, socioeconomic factors of addiction, the language of addiction, beliefs and myths about drugs, the war on drugs, harm reduction, cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma and PTSD, workplace risks, human rights, safe supply, and more.
Treatment and care for stimulant use disorder
Individuals and communities in BC are facing an increased risk of stimulant-related harms. Stimulant use can cause significant harms on its own, including negative cardiac and mental health outcomes. In this episode of Addiction Practice Pod, Dr. Marcus Greatheart and David Ball talk with addiction psychiatrist Dr. Julius Elefante about harm reduction and treatment for stimulant use disorder. We also hear from the executive director of UNDU, Katt Cadieux, on the importance of trusting your patient and building a care plan based on their lived experience.
Few are tackling stigma in addiction care. Some in Seattle want to change that
“Stigma is not just a consequence of providers,” says Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for the White House. “It’s also policies that have allowed that stigma to prosper over the decades. Where we are today with addiction care is no different than where we were with cancer a hundred years ago,” Gupta says. He imagines a world in which addiction is treated like any other disease – with comprehensive screening protocols, best practices and robust treatment options.
Safer supply: Current perspectives and evidence
If you missed this webinar live in May, you can now see it on-demand. The goal of this webinar is to build awareness and understanding of safer supply in Canada. As an alternative to the unregulated market, safer supply involves the provision of legal and regulated drugs for those at high risk of overdose and other harms. Safer supply is grounded in harm reduction and public health. It can be delivered through various models and can include a range of drugs, but most commonly involves opioids. Most safer supply programs currently operate through medical models involving prescriptions from healthcare providers.
DNA test results may eventually enhance prevention and treatment of substance use, including alcohol use disorder
“There are a lot of steps between the discovery of addiction-related genes and the effective use of genetic information in prevention and treatment,” says Danielle Dick, author of the research study in the American Journal of Medical Genetics. “This trial paves the way for studies using real genetic data and for integrating genetic information into prevention and intervention efforts.”
Visit the BC Centre for Disease Control’s Unregulated Drug Poisoning Emergency Dashboard for provincial data from different sources.
Visit the BC Centre on Substance Use for information on evidence-based approaches to substance use care and harm reduction.
Visit the National Safer Supply Community of Practice (NSS-CoP), whose goal is to scale up safer supply programs across Canada.
Visit the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research site for research on aclohol and substance use.
Questions? Feedback? Get in touch. Janet Madsen, Capacity Building and Digital Communications Coordinator, [email protected]