Reducing stigma, improving access to treatment and focusing on harm reduction are major planks of the Sudbury’s strategy to address surging number of opioid addicts, city council heard Tuesday evening.
Penny Sutcliffe, the medical officer of health, and Police Chief Paul Pedersen, co-chairs of the Community Drug Strategy, updated council on efforts to get the situation under control.
“This is a crisis,” Sutcliffe said, one that took a long time to develop, and one that will take a long time to fix.
Opioid prescriptions for chronic pain began in the 1990s, and when the drug Oxycontin was introduced, she said it was billed as having a low rates of addiction.
By 2002, Canada was second in the world in opioid prescriptions.
In 2013, fentanyl became available, in time release patches that are 50-100 times stronger than morphine. Abuse of the patches began soon after, she said.
Between 2009 and 2014, there were 655 fentanyl-related deaths in Canada.
“Between 2016 and June 2019, there have been 14,000 apparent opioid deaths in Canada,” Sutcliffe said. “Fentanyl has created a health crisis.
“We don’t know the future, but it is a crisis (that) has affected every part of Canada.”
In the first six months of 2019 in Sudbury, 28 people died from overdoses, she said, the vast majority taking place when the person was home and by themselves. Addicts are at as much a risk as first-time users of overdosing. Many people got hooked when they were given prescription for opioids after surgery or for other medical issues.
While the public may think addicts are homeless street people, the demographic is more complicated.
“The issues are not simple, and our assumptions about people who abuse opioids are often wrong,” Sutcliffe said. “The crisis did not development overnight and will not be solved overnight.”
Harm reduction, reducing barriers to treatment are big parts of the solution, she said, and it’s vital that the public view addicts with compassion and care enough to push for solutions.
Pedersen said the strategy is a mix of reacting to the problems the crisis generates, and taking “proactive” measures to reduce those problems. While some people believe throwing addicts in jail is a solution, past experience shows that is not the case, pointing to attempts to declare war on drugs that made the problem much worse.
“This is a problem we cannot arrest our way out of,” Pedersen said. “If the war on drugs worked, the U.S. would be the safest place anywhere.”
For example, Naxalone training for addicts and the public has saved many lives. Not a solution, but a good example of harm reduction. About 120,000 clean needles are distributed each month, an effective way of fighting diseases spread by shared needle use. But only 75,000 needles are returned each month, posing a challenge to collect the remainder.
Sutcliffe said work on the supervised consumption site application continues, but cautioned there’s no guarantee it will be successful.
“Regardless of the decision, we will have better data” to help them plan their response to crisis, she said.
More used needle bins in more areas, creating youth wellness hubs and support for the consumption site are all steps the city can take to help addicts.
Mayor Brian Bigger praised the work of the Community Drug Strategy, which he said includes represenatives from 60 groups “working to improve the lives of people in our community.”
It’s important the public be aware that most addicts abuse opioids at home, often becoming addicts after being prescribed the drug for pain,
“It’s not necessarily the people you see outside,” Bigger said. “It could be your mother, brother, father, someone who was in a car accident.”
Ward 6 Coun. Rene Lapierre, who is a paramedic, said there’s a belief in the public that all addicts are street people.
“A lot of people have this mentality there’s a needle stuck in the arm,” Lapierre said, when many addicts take pills or smoke the drug.
Michael Tibollo, Ontario’s associate Minister of Health, is coming to Sudbury Feb, 7 to meet with the group, he said, to find out what approaches they are using and what resources are needed.
“He is very eager to come to Sudbury,” Bigger said.
Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann wanted to know when the *study for the safe injection site would be ready. Illegal pop-up sites have popped in her ward, sparking anger and concern among residents.
“Is there timeline?” she asked.
Sutcliffe said there is lots of work remaining to be done, and securing things like a location and funding is complicated.
“There are many issues around feasibility,” she said. “This spring is as precise as we can be.”
*An earlier version of this story quoted Sutcliffe as saying the application should be ready by the spring. While the application is tenatively scheduled to be ready in spring, Sutcliffe said on Tuesday the study should be ready for internal review in the spring.
