Seventy-two BC doctors are urging the province’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, to reconsider expanding prescribed safer supply (PSS), claiming the practice is unscientific and could be dangerous long-term.
“Safer supply” is the legalized process of giving hard drug users free drugs — including highly addictive opioids — so they don’t use street drugs and accidentally kill themselves. The BC government first introduced the program 2021, while the federal Liberals launched related programs in 2020.
A letter to Dr. Henry was originally penned in an OpEd by Dr. Mark Mallet, published in the Victoria Times Colonist on February 14, has since been signed by 71 other BC physicians.
Dr. Mallet’s letter addresses a recent report by Henry, where the CMO conceded there’s “limited evidence” of PSS’ effectiveness.
“PSS advocates — and in particular those who favour PSS expansion — have repeatedly claimed that their argument is based on ‘evidence,’ and that opposition to expanded PSS is little more than ‘fear-mongering,'” Dr. Mallet wrote.
“The truth is, much of the evidence behind PSS is weak or inadequate, and Dr. Henry has now confirmed that with her report.”
Dr Mallet added: “It is virtually unheard of for a potentially dangerous medical intervention to be expanded beyond a pilot project without significant evidence showing efficacy, and similarly significant evidence showing an absence of harm.”
In her report, Dr. Henry acknowledged the manifold potential harms of PSS, including the potential diversion of the drugs to unintended populations, and the normalization of opioids and opioid access.
Dr. Mallet criticized the province’s lack of systematic evaluation of these potential consequences, saying there’s an urgent need for more research before further expanding the program.
Video of BC ‘safe injection site’ looks unsupervised, hellish
Earlier this month, deeply disturbing video from inside one of British Columbia’s safe injection sites emerged from independent journalist, Kevin Dahlgren.
Dahlgren posted a clip of himself walking from state-sanctioned room to room at a downtown Vancouver location, giving many Canadians what would be their first glimpse inside.
The video shows that Vancouver’s “Supervised injection site” isn’t quite as supervised as health authorities suggest.
