Thousands more naloxone kits to be distributed through pharmacies
Nearly 7,000 life-saving naloxone kits have been used by harmreduction staff in B.C. so far this year and thousands more kits will be distributed by pharmacies to battle the effects of a contaminated drug supply.
“That means you can get a kit at no charge if you use opioids or you are likely to witness an overdose,” said Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy. “Already, 1,900 kits have been distributed to over 200 pharmacies around the province.”
Naloxone will be available on request starting this month from pharmacies across B.C., including in London Drugs and Save-OnFoods stores. Instructions are available at towardtheheart.com.
Identifying information about the person receiving the kit will not be tracked.
In 2013, the first full year of the take-home naloxone program, 632 kits were distributed, and of those, 36 were used to reverse an overdose, said Jane Buxton, harmreduction lead for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
“Today, those numbers are dramatically higher,” she said.
“In 2017 alone, the harm-reduction program at the BCCDC distributed 30,000 kits, and nearly 7,000 kits have been reported as being used this year alone to reverse an overdose.”
Despite those efforts, more than 1,200 people have died of drug overdose in B.C. so far this year, and 999 of those showed evidence of fentanyl contamination, according to the B.C. Coroners Service.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid many times stronger than heroin. Carfentanil — roughly 5,000 times more powerful than heroin — has been implicated in 48 deaths.
“The most heartbreaking thing about all of this is that each of these deaths could have been prevented,” said Darcy.
The provincial government will spend $2 million a year in each of the next three years to increase access to naloxone as part of a $322-million investment to address the overdose crisis and encourage addicts to enter recovery programs.
Naloxone quickly reverses potentially deadly respiratory depression caused by an overdose of opioids, such as heroin, fentanyl and morphine.
Take-home naloxone kits are available from 830 locations, including harm-reduction sites, emergency rooms and health units.
Hundreds of people are dying because drugs often contain contaminated substances that can be fatal, said Mike, a former addict, now an advocate for life-saving access to naloxone.
“The more naloxone we get into people’s hands, the more lives we are going to be able to save,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “I have lost many friends as well, but I have also saved a few because I carry my naloxone kit on me at all times.”
Mike recalled a day when two girls came to find him and his kit in an emergency, but he was too late to save the person who was dying of an overdose.
“He didn’t get enough oxygen and it was more than 20 minutes,” he recalled.
“We tried our best, but if someone else had (a kit), this person would still be here today.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Mark Tyndall is organizing a $1-million pilot program that would supply pharmaceutical hydromorphone pills to 200 opioid addicts in an effort to stop them from buying contaminated street drugs.
Rather than taking every dose under supervision, he hopes eventually to allow users to take the morphine-derivative home with them, dramatically reducing the cost of treatment.
The cost of drugs could be as little as $700 a year per user, a small fraction of the cost of supervisedinjection drug therapy, said the executive medical director of the BCCDC.
Tyndall has advocated expanding the distribution of hydromorphone “on a larger scale,” including the use of vending machines for opioids.
“We are exploring different methods and one of the more extreme models would be anonymous vending machines. But we are exploring many models that would allow people access to a safer supply of drugs, including supportive housing and supervised injection sites,” he said.
To address the “toxic drug market” authorities need to give people access to clean drugs, he said. “We are exploring many different ways that could happen.”