The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
Curb ‘rampant prescribing of opioids and reduce deaths,’ Canadian doctors say
November 07, 2016 | CBC News
It’s late, but not too late, for Canada to reduce the toll of opioid overuse and abuse Use of prescription opioids in Canada has risen steadily over the past 20 years, with skyrocketing misuse, disorders and deaths, say experts who call for enforceable guidelines and a national strategy to add...
An urgent call to increase access to evidence-based opioid agonist therapy for prescription opioid use disorders
November 07, 2016 | CMAJ
As Fischer and colleagues highlight in a linked Analysis article, the use of prescription opioids among Canadians has increased dramatically in the last two decades, placing our country behind the United States as the second highest consumer of prescription opioids in the world. Paralleling this sta...
Addiction experts call for national opioid strategy as overdose deaths rise
November 07, 2016 | The Vancouver Sun
TORONTO – Canada needs a comprehensive national strategy to curb rampant overprescribing of opioids and to reduce escalating numbers of deaths caused by overdoses of the powerful narcotics, addiction experts say. Writing in Monday’s edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr...
How Canada’s Rehab Centres are Failing Drug Users
November 06, 2016 | VICE
Canadians are waiting months to get into government treatment centres, new data shows. Even though she’s next on the list for a bed at one of Manitoba’s best mental health and drug treatment facilities, Destiny Bohemier has been waiting from a hospital in Brandon, Manitoba for more than ...
B.C.’s fentanyl crisis: The view from the front lines
November 05, 2016 | The Vancouver Sun
Long before the overdose crisis was declared a public health emergency in April, first responders, doctors and the loved ones of drug users could see plenty of hard work and heartache ahead. Last month, the B.C. Coroners Service announced that 555 people had died from an illicit-drug overdose in B.C...
