City of Powell River councillors will consider a proposed resolution for Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) to advocate for a safe drug supply.
At a June 1 meeting, councillor Rob Southcott said safe supply refers to supply of drugs that are now illicit.
“Historically, it referred mostly to opiates and opioids,” said Southcott. “Internationally, legally produced opiates have been available to people addicted to opiate and opioid drugs. During the time I served as a paramedic in Vancouver, I was part of a study group that was expecting to visit a city in Germany to see how they administered a project. Since then, Portugal introduced a program sometime within the past 20 years, where legally produced opiates are provided by prescription.
“There are conditions in their program. There are various different ways it can be administered. The central concern is that people who are addicted to opiate and opioid drugs in British Columbia and across Canada have limited access.”
Southcott said trials are beginning and injectable opiate agonist therapy is a step in this direction. He added that the purpose of the UBCM resolution he proposed would be to carry that further, more similar to the programs in other countries such as Portugal, which have more broadly available programs.
“The basic bottom-line reason is we have such a high illicit drug overdose death rate, which stems mostly from the fact that fentanyl is an intense opiate and far harder to cut in the illicit market than heroin,” said Southcott.
Councillor Cindy Elliott said she is generally not in favour of prohibitions, and that legalizing and regulating are always a better way to go.
“Prohibition has a way of subsidizing organized crime and doesn’t work well,” said Elliott. “I would be in favour of councillor Southcott working with staff and coming forward with some wording that council could consider.
Southcott said his motion is to develop a resolution with staff to UBCM to advocate for education and advocacy for safe supply in BC. He said 206 people died from toxic drug supply last month.
The motion carried unanimously.
