The Opioid Crisis

Dan Toulgoet/File Photo

The Opioid Epidemic is the issue of the misuse and addiction of drugs that has been plaguing British Columbia since the 1990’s . This often-ignored health crisis has now spread throughout Canada and has severely impacted hundreds of thousands of people, as well as its social and economic welfare of the areas it affects the most.

After the United States, Canada is the second largest consumer of prescription opioids in the world. Opioid related maltreatments and non-medical prescriptions have been increasing in Canada since 1999. From the time of the 1980s, opioids sold to hospitals and pharmacies have grown over 3000 per cent in Canada, and in 2016, over 20 million subscriptions were sold to Canadians. Since 2008, nonmedical prescription opioid use has been the fourth most predominant form of substance use in Canada after alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis.

Opioid related events such as hospitalization and death rates in Canada have made their largest impact in British Columbia, with Yukon and the Northwest Territories not far behind. These trends resulted in the provincial government declaring a public health emergency in 2016.

In 2016, there was a record of 16 hospitalizations each day and 2861 opioid related deaths in BC alone. The highest number of deaths have occurred in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal Health communities with 401 and 337 deaths respectively.

Throughout July of this year, there were 184 suspected opioid deaths in BC. This was the second largest number of suspected opioid deaths ever recorded in Canada, tied with January of the same year. The July 2021 numbers are equivalent to an estimated 6 deaths per day, which has been the average number of deaths a day due to this epidemic in BC. since then. Most of these deaths have been reported to have occurred among males between 30 and 39 years old, who have been compelled by both illegal and prescribed opioids.

As of September 2021, over 1,000 British Columbians have died during this epidemic since its 2016 declaration. The epidemic continues due to the growth of the illicit synthetic opioid supply, the majority being fentanyl and pain relievers.

It has been proven that pain relievers, including prescription opioids, have been overprescribed in BC, which has also contributed to higher rates of overdose and death. It has been confirmed that the communities with the highest volumes of prescribed opioid purchases, Surrey, Vancouver, and Victoria, are also the communities with the highest overdose death rates. Overdose death rates are increasing in British Columbia because most of the population who have died due to their prescribed opioids did not fill out a prescription for their given medications the year before their passing. According to Dr. Steve Morgan, a professor for the UBC School of Population and Public Health, prescriptions may have been side-tracked to the illegal drug market before making it to the pharmacy stands.  

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the Opioid Overdose Surveillance Task Group (OOSTG) have been conducting national examinations of opioid related events in hopes to reduce them. Efforts to develop addiction and health services for opioid users have been active since the early 90’s, but have been emphasized by authorities more since 2016.

The VCH Regional Addiction Program has been the principal service in this project. This program has revealed the main challenges that have been preventing the reduction of the epidemic. Strategies include intervention-based and clinical therapies, new health systems and capacities, and resident evaluations in different communities. The prescribing system may need to be improved in order to make a change in this epidemic, particularly to monitor the purchases of fentanyl and morphine, which these two agencies have been working hard on refining as well.

Studies have shown that opioid overdoses can also be countered by fast deployment of the drug naloxone. Other effective medications such as methadone, naltrexone, and buprenorphine have been in use to treat overdoses as well. Improvements of overdosing rates have been recorded in other countries because of these remedies, along with decreasing the easy access of opioids to the general public.

British Columbia has been suffering through this epidemic of addiction and unintentional death, and has finally gained further publicity over the last few months as opioid death rates have skyrocketed. Many initiatives have been working to control of these rates, along with potential treatments such as naloxone, methadone, naltrexone, and buprenorphine.

As of November 1, the province has moved to ask the federal government to decriminalize personal possession of illicit drugs within BC.