Province commits $140M to battle opioid addictions
The province said Wednesday it will activate 4,000 drug treatment beds with a $100-million commitment to fight the lethal opioid crisis.
The money, which will be spent over four years, will be fortified by another $40 million for programs to counter often fatal opioid addictions, Premier Jason Kenney told a gathering of treatment and recovery experts in Calgary.
While he said safe-consumption sites now under review by his government have their place, ensuring drug users leave their addictions behind is crucial and was ignored by the previous government for too long.
“Despite this proven success of this proven treatment, it’s been crowded out by ineffective addiction management,” he told conference attendees, who responded with a standing ovation.
“Harm-reduction efforts certainly have their place but not at the expense of life treatment and recovery … We should not be cherry-picking the approach.”
He said in a belt-tightening environment, the funding priority stands out. “This was by far the largest spending commitment in our (election) platform … We have to make some tough choices, so we make that commitment,” he said.
Thousands of existing treatment spaces left vacant due to a lack of funding will now be activated, Kenney said.
“The Alberta government in the past has failed to fund adequately treatment … Harm reduction alone is not the answer,” he said.
The funding will also support outpatient services and upgrade social detox beds to medically supported ones.
Later, Kenney insisted the investment wouldn’t come at the expense of safe-consumption sites, some of which have raised the ire of neighbours due to social disruption in the areas surrounding them.
He said the resources announced Wednesday are supported by new money and are separate from that sustaining the province’s seven safe-consumption sites, though the province has put funding on hold for future sites pending a review of how they affect their neighbours.
Those who operate safe-consumption sites said last month that those facilities have prevented 4,300 overdoses and experienced not a single fatality since November 2017.
They also said needle debris and social disruption in the area surrounding an Edmonton site has fallen sharply since it opened.
Provincial officials have said the medical merits of the sites aren’t in doubt and are not part of their review.
Those who operate recovery and treatment centres welcomed Kenney’s announcement, calling it a game-changer in fighting addiction.
“This is way long overdue, this is history in the making in Alberta,” said Stacey Petersen, executive director of Calgary’s Fresh Start Recovery Centre.
The funding is “life-saving for us as an organization and our clients,” said Trevor Loria, president of Calgary’s Simon House.
He said the money will bring into operation its 66 treatment spaces and improve its level and standard of care.
“None of our beds have ever been funded or supported like this,” said Loria. “The message needs to be about recovery, that recovery is possible and doable, recovery happens every day.”
Loria said safe-consumption sites can act as an entry point to later recovery, but too often keep substance abusers stuck in their addiction.
Kenney is being “disingenuous” by saying the previous NDP government ignored the treatment side, when it devoted $63 million to that and other areas, such as naloxone kits and primary care physicians, said the party’s health and addictions critic Heather Sweet.
“Beds did exist and were being accessed,” said Sweet, adding the funding announcement is generally positive. “Where exactly will (Kenney) put that funding? What wasn’t being funded was private care clinics and for-profits.”
The new funding is welcome in a field that includes a variety of approaches and still needs safe-consumption sites, said the Alberta Community Council on HIV, a group that works on harm reduction.
“(Treatment) is a known deficiency in the continuum of care … recovery and treatment access need to include adaptation to non-abstinence-based approaches for treatment as well,” the council’s executive director, Celeste Hayward, said in a statement.
But she said Kenney’s statement that the safe-consumption approach is ineffective is wrong.
“The first foundation of all addictions services is keeping people alive and stabilizing their lives before they can move into recovery and treatment. Harm-reduction services provide a gateway for people to connect to recovery and treatment,” said Hayward.
At 789 deaths, last year was the deadliest in Alberta for opioid overdoses, with fentanyl causing 673 deaths. Although opioids are often produced and supplied illegally, many overdose victims initially began taking the drugs for medical reasons.
Overdose fatalities in Alberta appear to be decreasing, with 137 reported deaths so far in the first quarter of this year compared to 194 in the same time period in 2018.
Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld said the $140 million in funding adds another tool in the arsenal to combat the opioid crisis.
“The challenge we have is there’s nothing on his belt for officers (to deal with addictions),” he said.