B.C. needs non-prescription safe drug supply to curb OD deaths, expert panel says – CTV
Nov. 1, 2023
An expert panel has urged the B.C. government to “immediately” pursue a non-prescription safe drug supply program, arguing the current prescription model is too restrictive to meaningfully combat the province’s ongoing overdose crisis.
B.C.’s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe convened the panel – made up of more than a dozen doctors, the chief of the Abbotsford Police Department, and several others with expertise in public health and safety – last December, tasking members with finding the fastest and most effective way to slow the ever-growing death toll from toxic drugs.
Panel chair Michael Egilson said the group’s report, released Wednesday, was compiled and submitted in memory of the more than 13,000 lives lost to the crisis since B.C. declared a public health emergency over substance-related harms in April 2016.
“I have trouble simply visualizing how many people that is,” Egilson said at a news conference.
