Feds five-year opioid strategy won’t include decriminalization of hard drugs

CALGARY (NEWS 1130) – Canada’s federal minister of health outlined updated strategies to combat the country’s opioid crisis in Calgary Wednesday, including expansion of harm reduction programs and a national campaign to end the negative stigma associated with drug use.

But while speaking at a conference hosted by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, Ginette Petitpas Taylor said decriminalization of hard drugs – one of the more discussed ideas at the conference – won’t be included.

“We are exploring other avenues right now,” she said. “We’ve come up with some innovative solutions, we’re working with front-line service providers and also people with lived experience.”

Many health professionals at the conference promoted the idea of decriminalization and cited the practice in Portugal, where drug overdoses are extremely rare.

But Taylor said there isn’t one solution that will work.

“Decriminalization alone would not deal with this situation, we really have to look at a series of measures,” she said.

$100 million was earmarked in the 2017 budget for opioid strategies, $70 million of which has already been allocated and Wednesday’s meeting outlined how the rest of the money will be used.

Over five years, the three-pronged Harm Reduction Fund will focus around collaboration with provinces, supporting innovative strategies and changing the stigma.

Strategies include approving urgent temporary consumption sites on top of pre-approved permanent ones, testing of what substances users bring in and exploring the possibility of expanding the use of prescription heroin outside of hospitals, where it’s consumed currently.

Another major goal is working with front-line workers to reduce the rates of Hepatitis C and HIV.

$1.5 of the $30 million has already been allocated to the Dr. Peter Centre in Vancouver to provide training to new consumption sites, so they can share the best practices.

Taylor said according to current estimates, 3,000 Canadians are projected to lose their lives in 2017 and it’s unclear when these new strategies could lead to reductions.

“Up until this year, we did not even have a profile of the people that we were losing in this country,” she said. “I certainly don’t have a timeline.”

Taylor was also asked about how the government would deal with helping those who die from overdose as a result of being prescribed opioids, as opposed to getting them at the street level.

“Making sure that more services are available and training’s available for prescribing medications with respect to doctors, we certainly have to look at that,” she said. “We can see the profile is different from case to case.”

It was a subject brought up with Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, when she was asked during a technical briefing if the prescriptions are doing more to mitigate opioid use or serve as a gateway to addiction.

“You actually need more data,” she said. “I do think that the reduction of the federal regulatory barriers in many sense will allow us to get at that information.”

“We need to look more holistically at people who use different substances, they don’t just use one or the other and the interactions between each of these in its totality I think needs to be addressed.”

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today