New federal activities were announced at the Issues of Substance Conference in November 2017 as part of Canada’s on-going effort to address the national opioid crisis. Since the opioid crisis shocked the Canadian public in 2016 with an apparent 2,861 apparent opioid-related deaths in that year, governmental and civil society health leaders have combined their efforts to address the crisis. As of November 2017, these efforts total 147 commitments by non-governmental partners, 47 of which have been fully completed or implemented into ongoing practice. Examples of these completed initiatives include: the development of national data standards for opioids by the Canadian Institute for Health Information; advancement of e-prescribing solutions via Canada Health Infoway’s PrescribeIT tool; and the publication of 9 Million Prescriptions, a report on the current state of opioid prescribing in Ontario.
Despite the positive progress in completed actions and programs, the opioid crisis increased in severity throughout 2017. There were 1,460 apparent opioid-related deaths from January to June 2017, with 74% of apparent opioid-related deaths involving fentanyl or an analogous substance, up from 53% in 2016.
Since 2017, the Government of Canada has focused on authorizing and supporting the efforts taken by its partners in three key areas: cooperating with provinces and territories to address regulatory concerns; supporting innovative approaches to addressing the opioid crisis; and addressing the stigma related to opioid use. The federal government will fund a new harm-reduction pilot project to provide safer alternatives to those who use drugs, ensuring that the drugs provided do not contain other substances, such as fentanyl. Additionally, the federal government will authorize drug checking services at supervised consumption sites, and fund pilot projects to provide these drug checking services at supervised consumption sites as an innovative approach to harm reduction.
Other federal initiatives include funding for a study on health outcomes and recidivism for those released into the community who received medication assisted treatments during their sentence; working with the provinces and territories to remove regulatory restrictions on diacetylmorphine in the Narcotic Control Regulations to allow administration of the drug outside of a hospital setting; establishing a streamlined protocol for establishing temporary overdose prevention sites; and peer-support programs to address the stigmas related to opioid use.