Accidental deaths from opiate overdoses are up sharply in Canada, according to the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. This collection of concerned organisations says Canadians are the second biggest users of opiates in the world, after Americans. It adds overdose deaths now exceed deaths involving motor vehicles. It places some of the on prescriptions.
Opioids drugs ‘prescribed very freely’
“The amount of prescription for opioid medication for pain went up 20 per cent in the past several years,” says Walter Cavalieri, founder and director of the Canadian Harm Reduction Network, and member of the coalition.
“There was a push by companies which manufacture it to sell it, to make a profit. And medical personnel…bought into this wondrous drug which would not become an addictive drug. And, of course, everyone in the medical profession should know all opioids and opiates are addictive. So they prescribed it and prescribed very freely and it got loose into the community,” he says.
‘We are a pill-taking society’
“The other thing is that we are a pill-taking society…” adds Cavalieri. “There’s a pill for everything and pills become something which we just do almost naturally…I think we’ve been sold on the idea that there’s a cure for everything, pills will work and, in many cases, they do. But we’ve been oversold.”
Not just street users
All kinds of Canadian get into trouble with drugs, he says. Street users go to many different doctors to obtain multiple prescriptions and sometimes rob pharmacies to get the drugs. Some people who are prescribed pain-killers after operations use more than the prescribe dose if they can’t control their pain. And sometimes young people raid their parents’ medicine cabinets to experiment or take pills to parties. There are parties where youth bring assorted pills, put them in a bowl and randomly swallow a handful.
Recommendations to prevent opioid overdoses
Information about the problem is insufficient, says Cavalieri, and authorities need to first start collecting data. He says the drug naloxone can counter the effects of opiates and save lives, so it should be added to every opioid drug prescription. There should be more education on how to prevent, recognise and respond to overdoses for peers and first responders. A Good Samaritan law should be passed so that people who call in emergencies are not themselves arrested. And there should be guidelines for opioid prescriptions. These are some recommendations from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition to slow what Cavalieri calls ‘a pandemic’ of overdose deaths in Canada.
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