Is safe supply really safe?
Guest: Adam Zivo, Centre for Responsible Drug Policy
In this edition of Journal, we take a closer look at the “safer supply” of drugs in British Columbia.
This refers to the distribution to drug addicts, by the health authorities, of a drug called hydromorphone, an opioid some say is as potent as heroin. The idea behind this initiative is to move individuals away from the toxic street drugs that are causing so many overdoses.
But are they safe, as we understand the word? A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed in the BC Supreme Court suggesting this terminology is negligent misrepresentation – that they are not safe for our community.
An earlier report by an American drug policy expert commissioned by Bonnie Henry, our Medical Health Officer, stated that “rampant safe supply diversion is all but inevitable.”
“Diversion” means that while these drugs are initially given to drug users in the program, they are often traded for cash or stronger drugs on the street – these “dillies” (as they are often called) end up in the hands of our young people, even in our high schools.
Police have been quoted as saying that “everyday our officers observe people openly selling these diverted safe supply medications.”
This means that these drugs are often not staying with the intended user for the intended purpose, and thus increases the potential of expanding our drug-using community rather than decreasing it.
The reporter who has meticulously been documenting these issues in the National Post is Adam Zivo, the Executive Director of the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy.
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