The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
Experts Reject BC’s Safe Supply Claims
March 03, 2022 | 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 calle...
Opinion: Why the drug supply is still killing people in B.C.
March 01, 2022 | Vancouver Is Awesome
Last year was the deadliest year ever for illicit drug overdoses in B.C. and, as we’ll likely soon learn when official data is released, for all of Canada. In 2021, nearly seven British Columbians died every day from using illicit drugs. In Canada, the number is almost 20 each day. More people ar...
Making health care work for people with opioid use disorder
March 01, 2022 | UBC Faculty of Medicine
Every morning, BeeLee visits the Molson Overdose Prevention Site on Vancouver’s Downtown East Side to receive injectable opioid agonist treatment (iOAT) for her opioid use disorder. She takes a seat inside the clinic and a nurse practitioner administers a prescription dose of hydromorphone. Chatti...
Why medical training is key to reducing drug overdose deaths in B.C.
February 23, 2022 | Infotel Kelowna
There’s no question that there’s a lot of pain and suffering in the world. When B.C. residents turn to health care professionals to help them deal with physical pain, they are all too often consulting someone with no formal training in the use of opioids. That’s part of the reason that drug ov...
Amidst Drug Crisis, Calls for Bold Safe Supply Spending Go Unheeded
February 22, 2022 | The Tyee
Today’s B.C. budget indicates no change in its approach to the worsening toxic drug crisis despite unprecedented deaths and calls for bold spending to expand safe supply. An average of seven people are now dying each day, with 2,224 more deaths in 2021. It was the most fatal year recorded after 1...
