‘It feels that we are going backwards. What is the endgame here? — Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes
The NDP’s decision to require people to consume safer-supply program drugs in front of a health-care worker could lead to an increase in toxic drug deaths, which have been on the decline in recent months, advocates for drug users warn.
Recommended Videos
UBC professor Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes, a Canada Research Chair in person-centred care in addiction and public health, said there is little concrete evidence for the reasoning for the changes, that medications from the program are being diverted to organized crime and youth.
She accused the province of relying on anecdotes and said the shift is based more on politics than on wanting to help people with addictions.
“It feels that we are going backwards. What is the endgame here?” said Oviedo-Joekes. “It makes all of us that work in this field feel very uncertain of what’s coming for the people we serve.”
She said there is always going to be some diversion with any medication. She said the government should be tackling the reasons people sell their medications, such as poverty or not having the right medication, instead of blaming the patients.
James Harry Sr., the executive director of the All Nations Outreach Group in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, said he is “50-50” on the changes, saying he’s seen evidence of widespread diversion but also believes safer-supply has real benefits.
He said one way the province could ensure the new restrictions don’t cause too many problems is to have health-care workers at places like SROs to administer it or by informing shelter staff members where residents can go.
Harry said the emphasis should be on recovery and prevention, and there should be more options available for detox and treatment.
“Those hurts that happened two or three generations ago are still happening today,” he said, referring to residential schools and the overrepresentation of Indigenous people among victims of the toxic drug crisis. Indigenous people are dying from drugs at five times the rate of B.C.’s entire population.
The implications of the toxic drug crisis continued to dominate discussion at the legislature Thursday with Conservative house leader Áʼa꞉líya Warbus confronting the government and bringing up her family’s own struggles with toxic drugs.
“Last week, I attended a memorial for my brother who died one year ago from a lethal dose of drugs. He lost his life because this government has not only failed to stop the flow of fentanyl into our communities; they then inflated the market with so-called safe supply or safer supply,” she said.
“My family has already paid an unsurmountable price during this crisis. Not only did it take two of my brothers, but also my niece, who died alone in a tent in one of the tent cities from an overdose by herself. And just last fall, we buried my 13-year-old nephew because he found a wallet with drugs in it, which he did that night in his bed while his mom slept in the next room. He was not an addict.”
She later said the brothers she mentioned are cousins, but her family is so close that she considers them siblings.
Warbus said these family members are just some of the 16,328 British Columbians who have died since 2016 as a result of toxic drugs. She called on the NDP to call a public inquiry into when, exactly, the government knew that illicit substances were being diverted from its safer-supply program.
Her comments come a day after addictions critic Claire Rattée discussed her own struggles on the floor of the legislature, which included a stint homeless on the Downtown Eastside.
“Fourteen years ago, I was a homeless addict living on the Downtown Eastside, and I can tell you that the people that are going to die today and tomorrow deserve better than that answer,” she said after Premier David Eby said his government is working with police to end diversion while also addressing the toxic-drug crisis.
Health Minister Josie Osborne refused to call an inquiry, saying the safer-supply change will ensure medications are being taken by the right people and not ending up in the hands of drug traffickers.
She also said she had met with advocacy group AIDS Vancouver Island and heard countless stories about how the safer-supply program has helped people stabilize their lives and avoid falling victim to toxic street drugs.
Osborne said it will take weeks or months for those already in the safer-supply program to be transitioned to witnessed consumption.
“This is where the work with community service providers, with the pharmacy community, with prescribers and clinicians, is really, really important, so that we can make this as easy as possible for people to do that,” said Osborne.
“Some people visit a pharmacist every single day to have their consumption witnessed. But there are different types of medications that some of them are taking, up to four pills a day, for example.
“Then there are patches that people will apply for two to three days and there’s a whole process for the way pharmacists will apply those patches, and record them, and ensure that the old patch is returned.”
The health minister said there are currently about 3,500 people enrolled in the safer-supply, a decline from the over 4,000 that were taking part as recently as last year.