New Evidence From British Columbia Provides a Strong Case for Harm Reduction Strategies

published on July 8, 2019 by Jeffrey A. Singer in Cato Institute

A study published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction by researchers at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use found that harm reduction strategies were responsible for the province’s opioid-related overdose death rate being less than half of what it otherwise would have been between April 2016 and December 2017.

The researchers noted that 77 percent of opioid-related overdose deaths during that time frame involved illicit fentanyl. Vancouver has long been a major port of entry for fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, produced in China and other parts of East Asia, often using historic seaborn drug trade routes…