Nearly 1 in 4 federal inmates are receiving treatment for opioid addiction – GLOBAL

April 12, 2024

The opioid crisis is putting pressure on Canada’s federal prisons, as new data shows that nearly one in four inmates are receiving opioid agonist treatment like methadone or suboxone.

This comes from a recently answered order paper question on how many federal inmates are receiving that treatment and how many are using the prison needle exchange program.

In the response to B.C. Conservative MP Frank Caputo, Ontario Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell wrote that as of Feb. 4, 2024, 3,129 of the 13,619 inmates in federal prisons were receiving the treatment, or 23 per cent. Of those on opioid agonist treatment, 45 were involved in the prison needle exchange program.

There’s been a steady increase in the number of inmates receiving opioid agonist treatment since Correctional Service Canada (CSC) began to really see the growth of the opioid epidemic in 2016. In December 2016, nine per cent of inmates were getting opioid agonist treatment, climbing to 15 per cent at the end of 2021.

Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/10418013/csc-prison-opioid-treatment/