The numbers are in, and they are shockingly tragic: 11,577 Canadians—your friends, your families, your loved ones—died from apparent opioid-related overdoses between January 2016 and December 2018. The latest grim report from the Public Health Agency of Canada brings the gravity and scale of this national crisis into sharper relief. Last year, one person died every two hours from an opioid-related overdose.
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Distribution of safe drugs is not an insurmountable task. In B.C., for example, government could mount a truly robust public health-oriented response that draws together expertise from its ministries; the B.C. Centre for Disease Control; the B.C. Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU); the colleges of physicians, pharmacists, and nurses; first responders; the public-health community; civil-society organizations; and hundreds of people with lived experience working the frontlines of this epidemic.
Read the full story on the Georgia Straight.
