Experts say strategy for opioids is needed
Addiction experts say Canada needs acomprehensive national strategy to curb rampant over-prescribing of opioids and reduce escalating rates of overdose deaths from the powerful drugs.
Dr. Benedikt Fischer, of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, said Canadians are the second-highest consumers of opioids worldwide, after the U.S. Writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Fischer and co-authors say an estimated 2,000 Canadians died from opioid overdoses last year.
Fischer says an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Canadians have died from overdosing on prescription drugs like oxycodone, hydromorphone and fentanyl in the last 10 years.