Critics react to changes to B.C. overdose-prevention program

People in B.C. who are prescribed safe alternatives to deadly street drugs must now take their meds in front of a witness. Here’s why advocates are concerned.

British Columbia’s overdose-prevention safer supply program underwent a significant shift Tuesday.

With a few exceptions, participants in the program will now need to ingest their prescribed alternatives to street drugs in front of a health-care professional—often a pharmacist.

It’s a change the opposition B.C. Conservatives say is an improvement, and an acknowledgment that safer supply isn’t really working.

“This is really just managing someone’s decline,” said Claire Rattee, the B.C. Conservative critic for mental health and addictions. “We don’t do this in any other area of mental health or medicine.”

The shift was announced in February, prompted by leaked documents confirming what critics had warned about and the NDP had disputed—that significant amounts of the prescribed alternatives were being diverted and sold on the streets.

“The government continues to paint this as a problem with bad actors in pharmacies, but the reality was that it was a government policy of giving out large quantities of highly addictive opioids,” said Elenore Sturko, the Independent MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.

Sturko is the one who exposed the truth about diversion. She’s happy about the changes, but wants a public inquiry and more answers, including about the status of investigations into the dozens of pharmacies alleged to have enabled the diversion and how widespread it was.

“We need to have answers and clarity,” said Sturko on Tuesday. “Where is the accountability for those pharmacies that were under investigation?”

The latest stats show 150 lives lost to toxic drug overdoses in October.

Some worry Tuesday’s changes could actually add to those numbers, with street drugs becoming more convenient than prescribed alternatives.

“My concern is always that if people don’t go to get their prescription medications, then where will they go?” asked harm reduction advocate Guy Felicella.

The Health Ministry tells CTV News that investigations into the pharmacies began more than nine months ago and are ongoing. It says it remains committed to monitoring the program to ensure it’s working as intended to save lives in a crisis that’s already claimed more than 16,000 lives in nine years.