VICTORIA — A report from B.C.'s provincial health officer recommends the province expand its "safer supply" program to prevent overdoses, including allowing access to alternatives to unregulated drugs without a prescription.
But Mental Health and Addictions Minister Jennifer Whiteside says the province does not agree with the recommendation and "will not go in the direction" of "non-medical models of distributing medications." Dr. Bonnie Henry says in her latest report on the overdose crisis that efforts centred on drug prohibition have not only failed to control access to controlled substances but have also created the toxic unregulated drug supply that has killed thousands since a health emergency was declared eight years ago.
Her report echoes the findings from former chief coroner Lisa Lapointe, who said in January before leaving her post that prescribed safer-supply drugs would not solve the crisis that has claimed more than 14,000 lives in British Columbia since 2016. At the time, B.C.
Premier David Eby rejected Lapointe's pleas, saying he did not believe distribution of opioid drugs should happen without the supervision of medical professionals. In her response to Henry's recommendations, Whiteside echoes Eby's comments, saying the model of distributing safer-supply drugs through prescriptions separates "people who are at the highest risk of death and harm from the poisoned drug supply." "Dr.
Henry is an important independent voice on public health issues in this pro.
