B.C. Greens vow to expand ‘safer supply’ drug program
B.C. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau told reporters she would expand ‘safe supply’ opioids and other drugs to mitigate fatal overdoses in the province.
Drug addiction continues to make waves in British Columbia as a top election issue for voters. The local Green Party made clear it will expand ‘safer supply’ if they form a minority government.
Green Leader Sonia Furstenau told reporters Wednesday she would expand “safe supply” opioids and other narcotics to mitigate fatal overdoses in the province.
Furstenau also championed a broader system of prescribed “safer supply” including fentanyl to reduce stigma and barriers in the current system.
Since April 2016, drug overdoses have killed more than 15,000 people in B.C. and 33,000 people nationwide. Health Canada blamed fentanyl for the overwhelming majority (76%) of those deaths.
The province has been in a state of public health emergency for more than eight years that worsened with decriminalization last January 31.
Dr. Bonnie Henry says continuing to give out heroin as part of taxpayer-funded 'safer supply' programs is "an important part of the spectrum of medical care" for vulnerable people in British Columbia.https://t.co/rPoJJ4gQUI pic.twitter.com/2OLhjlAXZJ
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) February 6, 2024
The Green leader also advocated gathering data to track outcomes from the “hundreds of millions of public dollars” going to treatment and recovery programs.
The Public Health Agency granted British Columbia a subsection 56(1) exemption for three years under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to decriminalize people who possessed up to 2.5 grams of heroin, crack, cocaine, fentanyl, MDMA and meth.
From February 1, 2023, to May 7, 2024, overdose deaths totalled 3,313 on the West Coast, reported Blacklock’s Reporter. That surpassed the 2,843 deaths recorded in the 15 months before decriminalization, a 16.5% increase.
Furstenau instead took aim at other party leaders, whom she accused of unacceptable “dehumanizing rhetoric” against addicts, reported Global News.
B.C. Premier David Eby and B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad called decriminalization “nonsense” on the campaign trail earlier this week. Eby walked back his support for “safe supply” months ago after heralding complaints of public disorder.
Both the governing New Democrats and the B.C. Conservatives have campaigned on promises to bring in a form of involuntary treatment if elected.
Lisa Lapointe, the province’s former coroner, said there’s little evidence to support the idea.
“We need to be very careful before we jump off this involuntary care cliff as the answer to this very complex public health emergency. We know people die after treatment,” Lapointe said.
“We know that involuntary care has very little evidence to support its effectiveness … We are just setting ourselves up for a disaster, and more … people will die, more families will be harmed,” she added.
Eby disputed Lapointe’s criticism that involuntary care would kill more people.
“What we’re talking about is people who have serious mental health issues and addictions and brain injuries, and how we care for that population of people to make sure that they have a minimum standard of dignity and quality of life and to make sure the broader community is safe as well,” he said.
Eby said his goal remains giving vulnerable people better care. “And I’m not going to back down,” he told reporters.
Premier Smith criticizes B.C.'s "safe supply" drug program in response to a question from Rebel News' Alex Dhaliwal about legally-obtained narcotics entering Alberta.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) April 2, 2024
"I don't want anybody to think that there's any such thing as a safe supply of opioids," she says. pic.twitter.com/w1qqUyX7wu
In Lapointe’s final months as chief coroner, a review panel recommended providing controlled drugs without prescriptions but the governing NDP rejected the idea almost instantaneously.
B.C. dispensed 11 million tablets of “safer supply” hydromorphone during the 2022/2023 fiscal year.
The program bolstered its opioid supply by almost one-third, amid concern these tablets, combined with illicit fentanyl, "extend" black market supply and profits.
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