A guide to the city’s overdose prevention, supervised consumption, and drug testing sites
Everyday, harm reduction services save lives in B.C. In 2016, harm reduction services assisted in the averting 60 per cent of possible deaths due to intervention, according to the BC Centre for Disease Control.
COVID-19 has only exaggerated the existing overdose crisis. 7 000 people have died from overdose in the last five years. 2020 was the worst year ever recorded for overdose deaths, with 1716 lives lost.
It is becoming more evident that drug testing and harm reduction facilities are a necessity. To date, no deaths have occured to date at any of B.C.’s overdose prevention or supervised consumption sites. Most drug-related deaths occur when using alone or in a private residence, and using with others or in a supervised consumption location can minimize the risks.
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Police officers administered naloxone for first time just two hours after they had completed their training on the spray. The constables responded to a call in Glasgow’s east end on Tuesday night having participated in a six-month test of carrying and using the intra-nasal spray to reverse an opioid-related drug overdose. After successfully administering the spray, the man was stabilised before Scottish Ambulance Service clinicians arrived at the scene and took over emergency medical care. Carrying naloxone is voluntary during the pilot, involving constables, sergeants and inspectors in Glasgow and Falkirk with officers in Dundee to begin training soon, once those involved have completed the training course.
Naloxone, supplied in a small syringe, is injected intramuscularly and can be administered by anyone in an emergency overdose situation.
Since April 2014, Take Home Naloxone has been successful in reversing 598 opiate overdoses.
In 2019-20, it reversed 163 overdoses.
The Public Health Agency, with support from the Health and Social Care Board, coordinates the Take Home Naloxone programme.
Michael Owen, the PHA’s Lead for Drugs and Alcohol, said, “As the figures show, this service provides an important life-saving intervention – each overdose reversal is an occasion when a person could have died but didn’t.
“While only a very small portion of the population here uses heroin or other opiate type drugs, those who do are at a high risk of illness or death.