The latest news articles featuring BC Centre on Substance Use.
The FDA says people are confusing poppers with energy shots, and dying. Experts want proof
June 04, 2023 | CBC News
Poppers are a chemical substance popular among people who have anal sex. It’s not unusual for the packaging of one product to resemble that of another, potentially leading to mix-ups. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned people who drink energy shots to make sure they’re n...
New drug checking technology being used in qathet region
June 02, 2023 | Powell River Peak
Through funding from the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), qathet community action team (CAT) has purchased a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer that enables advanced drug testing in a matter of minutes. According to a media release from Lift Community Services, this is the o...
Adding up the billions of government dollars directed at Canada’s opioid crisis
May 30, 2023 | Vancouver Is Awesome
Since the province declared opioid overdoses and deaths a public health emergency seven years ago, at least 11,807 people in the province have died. Since Canada announced a new drugs and substances strategy focused on harm reduction, roughly 34,455 Canadians have lost their lives to an opioid overd...
Machine-Based Opioid Dispensing Reduced Drug-Related Harms
May 30, 2023 | Medscape
A British Columbia program that uses biometric dispensing machines to supply pharmaceutical-grade opioids to patients with opioid use disorder reduced drug-related harms and could potentially overcome barriers that hamper other safer supply strategies, an analysis has found. Characteristics that enc...
Diversion of ‘safer supply’: A growing problem or urban myth?
May 28, 2023 | Vancouver Sun
“A nightmare every day” is how Greg Sword describes the agony of losing his 14-year-old daughter Kamilah to a drug overdose last August. “She took a pill in the middle of the night and never woke up.” The B.C. Coroners Service told the grieving father that Kamilah had three drugs in her syst...
