‘Like a bomb dropping’: Safer supply changes leave patients struggling for stability

published on October 14, 2025 by Mick Sweetman in The Discourse

Lenae Silva makes a trip to the pharmacy every day where she gets a slow-release fentanyl patch that covers half her back and a dose of quick-release fentanyl tablets, which she takes half of at the pharmacy and is allowed to take half home for a second dose later in the day.

She started smoking meth at the age of 11 and began using opioids when she was 16. She said she was “heavily addicted” by age 18.

“I ended up having not much space of sobriety through the whole 20 years,” she told The Discourse.

Silva said she “wouldn’t be alive right now” without access to the province’s prescribed alternatives program — also known as safer supply — that seeks to keep people off toxic and deadly street drugs.

However, doctors and harm reduction workers in Nanaimo say changes to the province’s safer supply program means it is less accessible for people who need it most…