April 4, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Health Canada has decided not to require controlled-release opioid painkillers to be tamper-resistant, saying that measure wouldn’t help Canada’s fastest-growing drug problem, which kills hundreds of people across the country each year.
April 4, 2016 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Half the doctors prescribing fentanyl in Manitoba aren’t following safety guidelines for the potent opioid, which is 100 times more powerful than morphine. And researchers say other provinces are likely as bad, if not worse.
August 20, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Patients put on high doses of opioids are 24 times more likely to die because of them than people prescribed lower doses of the drugs, a new study finds.
August 12, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
It’s easier for Sue to buy Oxy on the street than to get treatment for the addiction that took over her life.
August 11, 2015 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
The Prince Albert methadone clinic where Lanre Egbeyemi worked has about 400 patients. He figures there are 10 times that many people who need treatment for crippling addictions to a host of potent opioids — and aren’t getting it.
November 9, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Ontario’s opioid epidemic is more deadly than ever, new numbers obtained by Global News indicate. And the province hasn’t shifted its tactics to deal with the evolving health crisis killing more than 500 Ontarians a year.
July 14, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Canada’s next painkiller crackdown won’t come from Ontario.
Its removal of OxyNEO from the Ontario Drug Benefit successfully sidelined Purdue’s replacement for what was once the most notoriously addictive opioid – OxyContin.
And the province now collects data on all prescriptions filled, not just those the government pays for.
But tackling Canada’s fastest-growing addiction is turning into a game of whack-a-mole: Prescriptions for just about every other potent painkiller are up – way up – in the past two years.
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews wants to re-examine who’s allowed to prescribe opioids, how they prescribe them and what pills the government pays for.
The drop in OxyContin and its replacement OxyNEO is “a success,” she told Global News in an interview Tuesday. But “there’s more to be done. … Who should be able to prescribe these drugs? What form is the right form? These are very important questions.”
Photo by Michelle Siu for the Globe and Mail
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
A year after provincial governments clamped down on the most notorious name in prescription-drug abuse, other, more powerful, less regulated opioids are filling the void – with sometimes fatal results.
OxyContin’s off the market, its tamper-resistant replacement tougher to get. But Canadians are popping more pills than ever: In 2010, for the first time, Canada edged past the United States to become the highest opioid-consuming country, per capita, in the world.
And more Canadians are dying from it: In 2011, twice as many Ontarians were killed by opioid overdoses as drivers killed in car accidents, according to coroner’s statistics given to Global News. That toll has more than tripled since 2002.
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