Pressure to expand safer drug supply after devastating overdose report

A day after a devastating report showing the overdose crisis is killing more people than ever before, there is more pressure on the province to do what it can to provide a safer supply of drugs to users.

Moms Stop the Harm organized rallies in the capital and in Vancouver, arguing with a street drug supply so toxic, the province must provide safer alternatives with renewed urgency.

Leslie McBain has long advocated for solutions to the overdose crisis, which claimed a record-breaking 2,224 lives in 2021. That's 26 per cent higher than the previous record.

McBain called on the health minister to step in, telling a crowd: "We are not the trucker convoy, we are holding our hearts in our hands, holding the memory of our dead children in our hands, and we are demanding safe supply."

In the crowd was Tess MacKinnon. Her partner Aaron died of an overdose weeks before his 36th birthday.

"It's not people you see in the streets, it's not people who go to safe injection sites where some one is supervising their consumption, it's people who die at home alone," said MacKinnon.

In Vancouver, where there are programs that provide access to safer supplies of drugs like medical grade heroin and opioid alternatives, there were calls to treat the overdose crisis with the same urgency as the pandemic.

Traci Letts said the government needs to listen to those who have lost loved ones.

"The feeling that you can't help your child is probably one of the worst feelings you'll ever have," she said.

Although many called on Health Minister Adrian Dix to respond, the file is overseen by the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Sheila Malcolmson.

She told reporters the federal government is close to making a decision that could see prescribed heroin access for a wider group of people. Under the current system, she added, the province is only approved to expand the prescribed safe supply.

While doctors and nurse practitioners can prescribe safer alternatives, not all do, because they're not convinced it will help long-term. As a result, advocates argue, the program reaches a fraction of those who could benefit.

"We've heard from people on the ground, heard from clinicians, for our prescribed safe supply to actually do its function of separating people from the toxic drug supply (B.C. needs) to add more access points, add more prescriptions," said Malcolmson.

At the rally, several participants acknowledged solutions are complex. What they want is immediate action to save lives, so fewer families face the same kind of grief they do.