A recent death of a young man in Powell River due to an overdose that Powell River RCMP suspect involved fentanyl was a tragic reminder that the area has a desperate need for more harm-reduction programs.
Powell River Community Health has been forward thinking in providing a long-running needle-exchange program that supplies intravenous drug users with clean syringes and a host of other crucial resources and services.
The needle exchange is part of a province-wide harm-reduction program and has been run out of Powell River General Hospital for the past 20 years.
But a comprehensive needle-exchange program isn’t enough anymore, especially with confirmation from Powell River RCMP that fentanyl is in the community’s drug supply. How many more people need to die in smaller cities such as Powell River before Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) takes appropriate steps?
Communities such as Powell River need safe-injection sites.
A controversial project in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the Insite program is a supervised injection site that has been open since 2003. Since that time, the number of deaths due to overdose from intravenous drug injections in the area has been reduced significantly.
Run by VCH, the safe-injection site is a health-focused centre in which drug users can inject themselves under supervision of health-care workers and have immediate access to health care services, including primary care for disease and infection, counselling, treatment and other community support programs.
Some people mistakenly assume that access to programs such as safe-injection sites will increase drug use in a community. The opposite is true.
Researchers from North America and Europe have found that Insite has not perpetuated drug use in the Downtown Eastside. In fact, it has saved lives, reduced transmission of disease and increased the number of drug users entering addiction treatment.
The idea that a safe-injection site would somehow promote or encourage intravenous drug use in smaller communities such as Powell River is ridiculous. This is a service for those already shooting drugs who need help.
With fentanyl on our streets and the recent tragedy of Powell River’s first overdose death this year, further action needs to be taken.
VCH already provides an established needle exchange at the hospital. It is time for the health authority to continue down the moral harm-reduction path and begin the process of adding a safe-injection component.
Jason Schreurs, publisher/editor
