Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.’s former provincial health officer, called Rustad’s post “shabby and outrageous,” and said it could put Henry at risk.
A former provincial health officer says a social-media post by B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad accusing Dr. Bonnie Henry of “promoting” fentanyl use could put her safety at risk.
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As part of negotiations to fend off U.S. tariffs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday agreed to appoint a national “fentanyl czar” to help stop the highly addictive and toxic street drug from entering North America.
The following day, Rustad posted on his X account: “British Columbia already has a fentanyl czar — her name is Doctor Bonnie Henry, and she is focused on promoting fentanyl use in BC.
“Hopefully, Canada’s new national fentanyl czar is focused on stopping fentanyl instead of promoting it …”
Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.’s former provincial health officer, called Rustad’s post “shabby and outrageous,” and said it could put Henry at risk.
“I think it’s shocking that a would-be political leader would put something like this out there, which is wholly inaccurate, ill-informed, [and] potentially poses a risk to the well-being and the safety of somebody who’s worked very, very, very hard to keep British Columbians safe.”
She led the province’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has publicly supported what’s known as safe supply — giving those with substance addictions a pharmaceutical-grade form of the drug as part of withdrawal management or maintenance.
Henry has received death threats.
“She’s had 24-hour RCMP guard because of threats on her life for close to four years,” said Kendall.
Of the approximately 900 people who commented on the post on the B.C. Conservative leader’s account, several suggested Henry should be jailed.
Dr. Caroline Ferris, former Island Health medical lead for mental health and substance use, said it’s “very irresponsible” for Rustad to conflate giving pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl to substance users with the illicit fentanyl market.
The social-media post shows Rustad’s “wilful lack of knowledge” of the issue, said Ferris, who is now in private practice.
Street fentanyl is the main driver of toxic drug overdose deaths in B.C., with the synthetic opioid detected in 78 per cent of the 2,253 deaths last year, according to the B.C. Coroners Service.
Pharmaceutical fentanyl, meanwhile, is administered as patches, pills or in injectable forms in medical settings under the supervision of health care professionals for pain or withdrawal management.
Ferris said the more the issue is polarized, “the more likely it is that overdose-prevention sites will be shut down, that distribution of harm-reduction supplies will be curtailed, that safe supply of pharmaceutical programs will be brought to an end.”
If that happens, it will increase overdose deaths, more people will end up with brain injuries from being revived from overdoses, and the spread of HIV, Hep C and other infections will increase, she said.
Rustad could not be reached for comment.
Addictions physician Dr. Ryan Herriot, co-founder of Doctors for Safer Drug Policy, said it’s difficult to know how to respond to “a non-fact-based statement.”
Herriot said some political leaders and journalists have been deliberately misleading the public on drug issues and harm-reduction policies for years.
Kendall, who retired as provincial health officer in 2018 after nearly 20 years in the job and was succeeded by Henry, said he’s seen drug policy in Canada swing back and forth between criminalization of addiction and seeing it as a health issue in need of treatment.
“And then we see a pushback at that from the right wing, from the Conservative Party, who calls supervised consumption sites drug dens, which is probably one of the more ill-informed [comments] you could put out there,” said Kendall. He said the pushback is partly rooted in perceptions of street disorder and street camping, although much of that is the result of lack of supportive housing, inadequate primary health care, and a lack of mental-health care.
“Many of them [on the street] are self medicating and some of them are acting disturbingly and some of them are criminal,” he said. “And labelling the people who have been trying, with evidence-based solutions, cautiously, to help them in different ways isn’t helping the issue and won’t make the problem go away, either — for some people, it will make it get much worse.”
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, at a news conference on Wednesday, said if elected, his party would bring in mandatory life sentences for people convicted of trafficking, producing or exporting more than 40 milligrams of fentanyl.
Many people who deal drugs are actually maintaining their own habits, said Kendall, “so we’ll once again be using the jails as a place for people with an addiction that could be treated medically given time and resources.”