B.C. NDP leadership race: Eby pitches involuntary care for severe overdose cases

published on August 18, 2022 by Katie DeRosa in Vancouver Sun

People who repeatedly overdose should be given treatment instead of being discharged from hospital, even if that means involuntary care, B.C. NDP leadership candidate David Eby says.

The idea, however, worries a leading addictions physician and researcher who said such an approach could do more harm than good.

“When someone overdoses twice in a day and they show up in the emergency room for the second time, a second overdose in the same day, the idea that we release that person back out into the street to overdose the third time and die or to have profound brain injury or just to come back to the emergency room again, seems very bizarre,” Eby told Postmedia News as he toured the Okanagan as part of his leadership campaign…