The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
Diversion of ‘safer supply’: A growing problem or urban myth?
May 28, 2023 | Vancouver Sun
“A nightmare every day” is how Greg Sword describes the agony of losing his 14-year-old daughter Kamilah to a drug overdose last August. “She took a pill in the middle of the night and never woke up.” The B.C. Coroners Service told the grieving father that Kamilah had three drugs in her syst...
Methamphetamine use is on the rise, worsening Canada’s already complex opioid crisis
May 23, 2023 | Globe and Mail
Like others working on the front lines of Canada’s toxic drug crisis, Paxton Bach is seeing a troubling shift in patterns of illicit drug use. Over the past decade, Dr. Bach, an internal medicine and addiction medicine specialist at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver and co-medical director at t...
Deadly April inflames drug debate. Does B.C. need more safe supply, or less?
May 18, 2023 | Global News
At least 206 people died of toxic drugs in April, according to the latest data from the BC Coroners Service, adding fuel to the debate over how to handle the province’s deadly drug crisis. The latest numbers show at least 814 drug deaths in the first four months of the year, with fentanyl de...
Users of opioid-dispensing machines overdosed less, reported improved health: study
May 15, 2023 | Globe and Mail
Nearly every participant in a study of a Vancouver safer supply program involving opioid-dispensing machines continued to use illicit drugs – but they used less, they experienced fewer overdoses and they reported improvements in health and well-being. The findings of the first formal evaluation of...
As opioid deaths skyrocket, Kingston takes a long look at drug decriminalization
May 14, 2023 | CBC News
Nearly two dozen agencies in the Kingston, Ont., area are asking residents what they think about decriminalizing illegal drugs for personal use as the region sees deaths from opioid use skyrocket. Between 2014 and 2020, there was a 330 per cent rise in opioid-related deaths in the region served...
