Treatment options needed to curb overdoses, critic says

The BC NDP government’s delays in providing a greater range of addiction recovery options in the face of the overdose crisis are putting lives at risk, the BC Liberal opposition critic for mental health and addictions said Tuesday.

“We need more treatment and recovery options immediately,” Jane Thornthwaite said in an interview. “We clearly are not doing what needs to be done.”

She told the Legislature on Monday that the NDP should work to end the opioid crisis by offering identified addicts residential treatment as is done in Portugal.

“Continuing to pour money into harm reduction, including replacement therapies and drugtesting kits, helps save lives today but won’t end the cycle of addiction,” Thornthwaite told MLAs.

She said in the interview those options are part of the solution but not the full spectrum of what’s needed. She suggested a need for more detox availability followed by other recovery options. “It could be 12-step, it could be not,” she said. “There’s a real inequality right now in our province about abstinence-based treatment.”

Her suggestions contrast with those put forward to Union of BC Municipalities conference (UBCM) delegates last month by the NDP-appointed leader of overdose crisis response team.

Dr. Patricia Daly angered members of B.C.’s abstinence-based addiction recovery community when she suggested opioid addicts use prescribed drug treatments for the rest of the lives.

“(There’s) a need for lifelong treatment that will allow you to function,” said Daly, Vancouver Coastal Health’s chief medical health officer.

Daly told UBCM delegates that pressure to remain abstinent and the stigmatization of relapse in 12-step recovery programs may not be as effective a long-term solution such as medication.

Thornthwaite said the comments have resulted in B.C.’s recovery community using a #StopDaly hashtag on social media.

In a Sept. 26 response to a request to identify which drug replacement therapies are approved for use, Anna Low, freedom of information co-ordinator for Vancouver Coastal Health, said Daly is not an expert in that area.

“Dr. Daly does not make recommendations for drug treatments for opioid use disorder as this is not her area of expertise,” Low said in the emailed response. “In B.C., these are made by the B.C. Centre for Substance Use (BCCSU), and they communicate directly with physicians with their recommendations. Some are also endorsed by the provincial government.”

Low noted the authority “does not approve drugs or medications for opioid use disorder

– this is the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health, College of Pharmacists, and Lower Mainland Pharmacy.” The provincial Ministry of Health website said PharmaCare covers methadone, buprenorphine/naloxone (also known as Suboxone) and the slow-release morphine Kadian as treatments for opioid addiction.

None of the manufacturers of those specific drugs listed in the ministry website are named in a lawsuit the government filed against opioid drug makers Aug. 29.

NDP deputy caucus chair Rachna Singh agreed with Thornthwaite in the Legislature that residential care investments are needed to assist addicts in quitting drugs.

However, she also stressed the need for harm reduction and overdose prevention sites such as Insite in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

There, medical staff supervises users as they inject.

Singh, a former alcohol and drug counsellor, said the first priority is to keep people alive.

“There’s no treatment for addiction if the patient is dead,” Singh said. “We should have all kinds of treatment models. If we don’t have the person seeking the treatment alive, there’s no point in creating all these kinds of services.”