Straight Talk

CLEAN DRUGS WILL GO TO LONG-TERM OPIOID ADDICTS The province is accelerating an expansion of a controversial program where people who are addicted to opioids receive a clean supply of drugs via the province’s health-care system.

In a telephone interview, B.C.’S minister of mental health and addictions, Judy Darcy, said the goal is to see injectable hydromorphone—a drug very similar to heroin—available in all five of B.C.’S health authorities as soon as possible.

“We want to get this life-saving treatment into people’s hands,” she told the Straight. “It’s a critical alternative for people for whom first-line therapies don’t work… and I’m pressing as hard as I can to improve access.”

Darcy said she has assigned the task to B.C.’S new Overdose Emergency Response Centre, which was announced for Vancouver General Hospital on December 1.

“It’s modelled after a traditional emergency management structure,” she noted. “That’s going to really accelerate everything we’re doing across the board for the overdose crisis.”

B.C. is on track for more than 1,400 fatal overdoses this year, according to the latest coroner’s report. That’s up from 981 in 2016 and 519 the year before that. In 2017, more than 80 percent of overdose deaths have been associated with the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Since 2014, a small group of select patients in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside have received prescription heroin (diacetylmorphine) or hydromorphone (brand name Dilaudid) via injection at a clinic called Crosstown. Because those drugs are controlled and regulated by the government, they’re guaranteed pure, thus eliminating the risk of a fentanyl overdose.

Dr. Patricia Daly is chief medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and the Overdose Emergency Response Centre’s first executive director and clinical lead. She told the Straight that so far B.C. has only made injectable opioid agonist therapy (IOAT), as its formally known, available to patients who have repeatedly failed with traditional oral treatments such as methadone and Suboxone.

“It is for long-term opioid addicts,” she emphasized. “Having said that…that’s not the only group for whom this might be appropriate, in the midst of the opioid crisis.”

Because the risks associated with street drugs are now so great, Daly said, B.C. health-care professionals are discussing “lowering the bar” for injectable hydromorphone. (Complicated barriers mean that for now the province is not expanding access to prescription heroin.)

“In terms of addressing the current [overdose] crisis, we want to engage people in opioid agonist therapy, and if the only way they are willing to start is injectables, let’s start them that way,” Daly said.

Darcy instructed B.C.’S five health authorities to draft injectable opioid agonist therapy plans last October. She said Daly will now be working with the regional care providers to hurry that process along.

“Fraser Health has indicated that they have plans under way to have injectables, and Interior Health also wants to offer this. So this is going to be provincial,” Daly said. “And we [Vancouver] only have it in the Downtown Eastside. So even in VCH, we need to make this more broadly available in other places. There are plans under way to do that.” > TRAVIS LUPICK NDP REVEALS FIRST RULES FOR MARIJUANA SALES The B.C. government has revealed its first regulations for recreationalcannabis sales.

The minimum age for purchasing marijuana in B.C. will be 19, same as it is for tobacco and alcohol.

The wholesale distribution of recreational marijuana will be handled by the government’s Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB).

Details on how sales to individual consumers will occur won’t come until early 2018. But according to a December 5 release, B.C.’S retail model for cannabis will include “opportunities” for both public and private players.

In a news conference the same day, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said the province is still considering selling cannabis alongside alcohol. He did not indicate whether or not existing dispensaries that have gone through municipal licensing in Vancouver and Victoria will be guaranteed a place in the retail framework.

The federal government set a deadline of July 2018 for the provinces to draft laws and create systems for the distribution and sale of recreational cannabis. Farnworth has made it clear that a provincial licensing system is not in the cards.

> TRAVIS LUPICK AND

AMANDA SIEBERT

NEW CITY PLAN GIVES REPRIEVE TO TWO POOLS The Vancouver park board is expected to make a splash with a new aquatics strategy for the city.

Park commissioners will vote Monday (December 11) on the strategy and its 10-year plan that calls for three new indoor swimming pools and one outdoor pool.

Since the completion of the Hillcrest Aquatic Centre as a legacy of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, there has not been another public pool built in the city.

The plan provides for: the replacement of the neighbourhood pool at the Britannia Community Centre with a bigger one at an estimated cost of $35 million; a new citywide-destination pool at Connaught Park for $75 million; and construction of a replacement for the Vancouver Aquatic Centre for $70 million.

Under Vansplash: Vancouver Aquatics Strategy, the plan postpones consideration of an earlier recommendation to demolish the Templeton and Lord Byng pools.

With the plan to be considered by the board on December 11, the development of a bigger pool at Britannia will be completed first before consideration of whether or not thetempleton pool is still needed. The city will also wait for the completion of the new pool at Connaught Park before deciding on what to do with the Lord Byng pool.

South Vancouver will get a new outdoor pool under the plan. According to a staff report, it may be located either at the Killarney Community Centre or the Marpole Community Centre.

The plan also calls for upgrades to the Kensington pool, with an estimated cost of $2 million to $4 million. Also included in Vansplash are upgrades to outdoor pools and changing rooms at beaches.

> CARLITO PABLO