Street drugs drive crisis, study finds
De-prescribing opioids won’t stem tide of overdose deaths, UBC research shows
Canada needs a new approach to tackle its overdose crisis, says the lead author of a study that highlights a prevalence of overdoses involving non-prescribed fentanyl and stimulants in B.C.
There have been more than 15,000 apparent opioid-related deaths in Canada since 2016.
B.C. has had more than 5,000 deaths from illicit drug overdoses since declaring a public health emergency in 2016.
The study, published on Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, looked at 1,789 overdose deaths in British Columbia between 2015-17 in which the coroner was able to determine the substances relevant to the deaths.
It reported that, despite decreases in the prescription of opioids across the province, the death rate from illicit-drug overdoses has continued to rise.
Dr. Alexis Crabtree, the study’s lead author and resident physician in public health and preventive medicine at the University of British Columbia, says it highlights what isn’t working when it comes to tackling the overdose crisis.
“What we found is that this overdose crisis isn’t driven by prescribed medications and de-prescribing initiatives alone won’t solve the overdose crisis,” she said.
In most cases where prescribed opioids were implicated in a death, the toxicology report also flagged the non-prescribed opioids in the person’s system, Crabtree added.
The study’s findings also highlight the declining role of prescription opioids and heroin in the overdose crisis and the rise of synthetic opioids and stimulants.
The current strategies on battling the overdose crisis “must do much more” than target de-prescribing opioids, the study concludes.
Men continue to dominate the overdose death toll, making up more than 80 per cent of deaths, with people between the ages of 31 and 49 making up the predominant number of deaths.
One aspect often overlooked is the efficacy of methadone and buprenorphine, opioids used to treat opioid addiction, Crabtree said.
The study showed that few overdoses involved people with those opioids in their system, which Crabtree said should make doctors feel more comfortable in prescribing them to drug users.
In B.C., the provincial government expanded the access to a safe supply of prescription drugs near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic due to concerns about the number of overdose deaths arising from isolated drug users.
That program, and subsequent concerns raised over the prescribing of illicit-alternative drugs, prompted the decision to publish the study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Crabtree said.
“A question or concern physicians have is: ‘Is the medication I’m prescribing contributing to overdoses?’” said Crabtree. “I can understand why people have that concern. I think these results are really reassuring that prescribed medications are not a driver of overdose risks and supports physicians to prescribe under those risk mitigation guidelines.”