Mass withdrawal feared as Oxycontin funding pulled
TORONTO — Health Canada’s decision to phase out funding of Oxycontin for First Nations people is setting the stage for a masswithdrawal disaster among the “staggering” number of addicts on remote, northern reserves, a leading expert warned this week.
The forced removal from the powerful prescription painkiller could push people onto heroin, cocaine and other more dangerous drugs, spark increased crime and raise the risk of miscarriage in pregnant women hooked on the medicine, said Benedikt Fischer of B.C.’S Simon Fraser University.
As many as half of the adults and youth on reserves belonging to Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) in northern Ontario are dependent on Oxycontin now, said Fischer, director the university’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addictions.
“In the absence of any regular treatment, a publichealth catastrophe is imminent,” he said in the draft of a statement prepared by NAN. “There are thousands of addicted individuals with rapidly shrinking supplies.”
Health Canada, though, says most of the addicts are not getting the drug through legal prescriptions funded by the government.
In fact, in the NAN reserves, only 100 patients are now receiving Oxycontin paid for by department, spokesman Stephane Shank in an emailed response to questions.
There is a widespread black market in the medication across Canada.
Purdue Pharma, which makes the drug, is introducing a new version of it, called Oxyneo, that it says is harder to crush and snort or inject, a technique that enables abusers to quickly absorb the full effect of pills designed to release their medication gradually over time.
Health Canada, however, has decided to not cover the costs of the new form of the drug.
The new drug comes on the market March 1 and supplies of the old Oxycontin are expected to be depleted within weeks, said Fischer.
Addiction to Oxycontin and other “opioid” painkillers has reached epidemic proportions across Canadian society in recent years, leading to hundreds of deaths a annually, according to provincial coroners.
The problem has been particularly pronounced on some impoverished reserves where substance abuse is a commonplace. Last month, Cat Lake First Nation declared a state of emergency because of widespread opioid addiction, with the band council saying it could no longer cope with the health and security fallout of the problem.
A conservative estimate suggests at least 10,000 of Nishnawbe Aski’s 45,000 people are hooked on OxyContin and other opioids, though the number is likely larger, said Fischer.
The standard treatment used for people with opioid addiction — methadone replacement therapy — is not available on many remote reserves.
The NAN briefing note suggests a number of measures to stave off the publichealth crisis, such as funding treatment with another substitution drug, Suboxone.
Health Canada will pay for Suboxone on a case-bycase basis under the First Nations program when it receives a request from a health-care professional, said Shank.