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Since the year 2000, there has been a marked and dramatic increase in the number of Canadians using opioid drugs. Consequently, the number of overdoses has also dramatically risen. In 2010, it was reported that 1 in 20 adults, and as many as 1 in 6 teenagers, were misusing opioid drugs.
In 2015, federal legislation was introduced in response to the misuse crisis, which would require some drugs to be held in tamper-proof containers. However, these containers would only apply to prescriptions of oxycodone, which alone accounted for roughly 10% of opioid prescriptions at the time. Furthermore, there was little evidence that tamper-proof containers would significantly curb the opioid misuse epidemic. Since then few steps have been taken by the federal government. In response, physicians have started actively prescribing the opioid drug hydromorphone as a solution. Hydromorphone Maintenance Therapy (HMT) involves physicians prescribing hydromorphone to those with opioid use disorders to try and draw them away from the more dangerous supply of street drugs. The practice of HMT has not been peer-reviewed and, according to critics, causes more overdoses, infections, and deaths than other peer-reviewed processes. Most consider this practice to be something that was starting in response to a lack of government action towards the opioid epidemic.
In 2012, after Oxycodone, an opioid drug was implicated as one of the most common single drugs involved in the misuse crisis, serval provinces removed it from their list of drugs that were approved for the prescription. Unfortunately, this did little to curb the wide prevalence of opioid misuse, as users shifted to other drugs, such as hydromorphone, or the more dangerous fentanyl. As the response of the federal government, the response of the provincial government has been minimal. Supervised injection sites exist in BC, Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario, they exist in a legal grey area, with substance use and possession being permitted, but still illegal, in those specific sites. The Supreme Court of Canada has yet to rule on the constitutionality of these sites, suggesting an uncertain future. Most provinces still rely on physician-lead HMT as their primary answer to the opioid use crisis.
British Columbia
In April 2019, British Columbia's chief health officer, Bonnie Henry, released a report entitled Stopping the Harm: Decriminalization of People Who Use Drugs in BC on the public health crisis caused by substance abuse in BC. The report recommends that authorities decriminalize the possession of drugs for personal use to effectively address the drug abuse crisis. She also cited Portugal as an example where the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use had resulted in a significant reduction in deaths, a decline in drug abuse and an increase in the number of people seeking treatment.
In October 2020, the Public Health Agency of Canada, in its annual report "From Risk to Residency: An Equal Approach to the Coronavirus", noted that not only does the Coronavirus bring about a new public health crisis, but it also acts as a catalyst to exacerbate the existing crisis of drug abuse. Based on the most recent data, British Columbia's overdose death rate remains at a quite high level. According to the BC Coroners Service, in March 2021, there were 155 drug abuse deaths in BC. Although this was down slightly from 165 deaths in January 2021, this marked the 11th consecutive month in which the number of drug abuse deaths exceeded 100 per month in British Columbia. Such an unfavourable situation, which continues to deteriorate, demonstrates the continuing threat to public health and safety posed by the illicit drug market, which has been further exacerbated by the severity of the outbreak. On the one hand, the social isolation measures put in place to contain COVID-19 have resulted in the deaths of some drug addicts who overdose with no close friends or family aside, resulting in a more severe health crisis on a large scale. In addition, the closure of borders caused by COVID-19 has also made it difficult for "regulated drugs" to reach local markets, which has allowed the unregulated supply of local drugs to flourish and contributed to the deepening of the drug abuse crisis. The current situation highlights the urgent need for decisive action to ensure a safe regulated supply while providing treatment and other health services including mental health care to addicts.
