Experts Reject BC’s Safe Supply Claims

published on March 3, 2022 by Moira Wyton in The Tyee

Seventeen months after the B.C. government committed to expanding safe supply, only about 500 people are able to access real replacements for increasingly poisoned drugs.

In February, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson said 12,000 people had been prescribed what she has called both “safe supply” and “safer supply.”

“Since we first introduced prescribed safe supply in March 2020, there have been more than 12,000 people helped with this groundbreaking response,” Malcolmson said.

But public health experts and advocates say the B.C. government is misrepresenting its safe supply programs as toxic drug deaths soar, with seven people a day dying in November and December.

The government’s claim that 12,000 people have accessed safe supply is actually a count of people who have received prescriptions for withdrawal management substances and alternatives like hydromorphone…