The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
Mobile Medical Unit brings hope, relief to B.C. overdose victims
January 02, 2017 | The Globe and Mail
The woman sits slouched in a black folding chair, slowly regaining her strength. She is recovering from her second overdose since being released from jail just four days earlier and physicians are watching her closely. She is crying. … It was easier to get street drugs than it was to get help, she...
Canada faces deadly fentanyl overdose crisis
January 02, 2017 | Yahoo
Vancouver (AFP) – Sirens scream non-stop through the urban heart of Vancouver, as responders race toward drug addicts overdosing — and dying in such numbers that the city’s morgues are full. This wealthy Pacific coast city is the bleak epicenter of an opioid epidemic that has claimed thousands...
Cheque Day in the Downtown Eastside
January 01, 2017 | The Globe and Mail
The prevalence of fentanyl and carfentanil means drug users in the Downtown Eastside are always at risk, but never more so than when social assistance cheques arrive every month. The Globe spent roughly 24 hours in the troubled neighbourhood for a first-hand look at the overdose crisis Deirdre is le...
Les dégâts cérébraux irréversibles des surdoses liées au fentanyl
December 30, 2016 | Radio-Canada
Overdoses caused by fentanyl cause irreversible damage to the brain, and the number of cases in British Columbia is causing concern to the medical community. At St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, physicians have seen an upsurge in catastrophic brain damage since the fentanyl crisis, the powerful op...
Doctors struggling to cope with growing number of overdose patients with brain damage
December 30, 2016 | CBC News
As the number of drug overdoses continues to rise in B.C., doctors are struggling to cope with the increasing number of patients facing irreversible brain damage and other long-term health issues. Since January, more than 6,000 patients have ended up in Vancouver-area emergency departments because o...
