CHARBONNEAU – Safer supply drug diversion is greatly exaggerated

IT’S TRUE THAT some drugs given to addicts treated under B.C.’s safer supply program end up being sold on the street.

But the scale of the problem is being inflated to suit the needs of ill-informed politicians. They have a warped notion that it’s better to let addicts die from toxic street drugs than give them drugs that are less likely to kill them.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who likes  bashing B.C. as a way of propping up her distorted ideas, says that she has warned for years that prescribed alternatives to illicit street drugs could be diverted and trafficked across the country.

At first her claim seemed to be confirmed by Prince George and Campbell River RCMP who seized large quantities of hydromorphone. Campbell River RCMP spokesperson Constable Maury Tyre said there was “significant information that indicated it came from safer supply.”

Then the RCMP retracted that claim. The commanding officer RCMP of B.C. said that the idea that there is widespread diversion from the safer supply program is untrue.

It’s untrue that there is a large diversion of safer supply drugs because the numbers don’t support it.

About 225,000 people use illicit substances in BC. Of those, 15,000 are diagnosed with opioid-use disorder. Of those only 4,331 — less than 4 per cent — were prescribed alternatives such as  hydromorphone through safer supply.

I don’t mean to trivialise the problem of hydromorphone diversion. As I wrote earlier, some addicts don’t want the prescribed hydromorphone given to them because they crave the more powerful fentanyl.

So the addicts sell hydromorphone, often for as little as $4 for a  8-mg tablet. Those can end up in the hands of youths who treat  it as a party drug and overdose, possibly becoming addicted.

B.C.’s Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, recognizes that the diversion of hydromorphone is a “common occurrence.” Diversion occurs because hydromorphone does not meet the needs of people who have developed a much higher tolerance to opioids because of fentanyl, says Henry.

However, despite anecdotal reports of young people accessing diverted hydromorphone, current data from B.C. Centre for Disease Control do not show an increase in youth opioid use disorder.

I suggested in this column that fentanyl be given to addicts who need the fix that the more powerful drug delivers. Then they won’t be selling the hydromorphone that doesn’t do the trick.

I can see misinformed politicians like Smith and Pierre Poilievre going ballistic: “Giving addicts the drugs that subdue their craving? Let them go cold turkey.”

As for hydromorphone diversion, there is an alternate explanation as to how hydromorphone gets on the streets.

About 85 per cent of hydromorphone prescribed in B.C. is for pain management and only 15 per cent though safer supply. Patients looking for a quick buck could be selling their doctor-prescribed hydromorphone on the street.

Not only does the safer supply program make sense, a recent study by the British Medical Journal shows it to be true.

The study found participants in the safer supply program were 55-per-cent less likely to die from a drug overdose than a control group.

Drug diversions from safer supply, already low, could be reduced even further by watching addicts consume prescription drugs so that they don’t walk out of the clinic with them.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.