June 16, 2014 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose is considering requiring certain prescription drugs be tamper-resistant – and she wants to know what you think.
prescription-drug abuse
Ontario considers changing who prescribes opioids, and how
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.”
Canada’s the world capital of potent opioids, and that makes its neighbour nervous
Click to compare Canada’s hydromorph contin consumption with the rest of the world.
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Health Canada rattled nerves south of the border last fall when it approved generic versions of OxyContin.
United States drug czar Gil Kerlikowske issued an alert to law-enforcement agencies, warning that “the potential exists for diversion into the United States because the old formulations, which are easier to abuse, are unavailable in the United States,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
“This alert seeks to raise awareness of this change with law enforcement along the Northern Border so law enforcement and border officials can work jointly to prevent diversion.”
OxyContin’s gone, but Canada’s pill-popping problem is worse than ever
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.
One company, two drugs, two takes on pill safety
Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News
Purdue Pharmaceuticals markets a long-acting, non-tamper resistant opioid in Canada but argues that another long-acting, non-tamper resistant opioid in the U.S. is too dangerous to approve.
In an 80-page submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last July – quoting Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews, among several others – Purdue argued that allowing generic versions of OxyContin on the market without tamper-proofing mechanisms “would have a number of detrimental effects and would be flatly inconsistent with the Agency’s mission to promote and protect the public health.”
No plans to make Suboxone more easily available in Ontario, Deb Matthews says
Photo by Moe Doiron/The Globe and Mail
Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews says the province has no immediate plans to put Suboxone on the Ontario Drug Benefit, which would make it more readily available to treat addicts who can’t get methadone, a more common treatment for opioid addiction. Health-care practitioners, especially in remote areas, want to use Suboxone more in cases where there are simply no licensed methadone doctors around, or no spaces available. Buprenorphine, the active ingredient in Suboxone, is supposed to be safer and easier for others (nurses, for example) to give out. It’s also really expensive.
Provinces clamp down on OxyContin abuse
Photo by Michelle Siu for the Globe and Mail
Saturday, February 18, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
The epicentres of Canada’s prescription pill problem have said they’ll only pay for the leading brand of potent painkillers under special circumstances – one of the most dramatic steps taken in years to tackle the country’s fastest-growing addiction.
Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures OxyContin, is replacing it with a drug that’s supposed to be less prone to abuse. But some provinces have decided that’s not good enough.
Treating the tiny victims of Canada’s fastest-growing addiction
Laura holds Carter at their home in Hamilton, ON. He was born with the shakes, the sweats, stiff limbs and sneezing fits, hospitalized and on morphine for three weeks. He's now home, and healthy.
Photo by Glenn Lowson for the Globe and Mail
Saturday, January 7, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
HAMILTON — Hours after his birth, stiff-limbed and trembling, Carter was whisked away to a bassinet in a neonatal intensive care unit and fed morphine through a dropper.
He broke out in sweats, a fine sheen clinging to his neck and scalp, when, weeks later, nurses started to wean him off. His mother, Laura, who asked to be identified by her first name only, knew exactly what he was going through: She’d experienced withdrawal before.
“That was the worst part. Knowing what it feels like, and knowing a little baby … it’s the worst feeling in the world, you know? You don’t want your child to go through that.”
Ontario slow to act on prescription-drug reforms, doctors charge
"I would characterize it as the most important drug safety problem we face today," says Dave Juurlink, a doctor at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a member of the province's Committee to Evaluate Drugs. "I don't know what it is about this particular problem that has allowed it to escape the scrutiny that so many other drug-related problems have attracted."
Photo by Michelle Siu for the Globe and Mail
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
The Ontario government and the College of Physicians and Surgeons have nothing against four dozen recommendations resulting from an inquest into a pair of overdose deaths – but they have no intention of acting on them any time soon.
The suggestions from a five-member jury came out last week following more than a month of testimony into the 2008 deaths of Dustin King and Donna Bertrand. The two died within days of each other in Ms. Bertrand’s Brockville, Ont., apartment. Each had ingested fatal amounts of prescription drugs.
Brockville inquest urges overhaul of opioid prescribing
Photo by Michelle Siu for the Globe and Mail
KIM MACKRAEL AND ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Tuesday, July 05, 2011 – Globe and Mail
Ontario should overhaul its system for prescribing, monitoring and treating patients using prescription opioids, an inquest into two fatal drug overdoses in Brockville has recommended.
The inquest into the 2008 deaths of 41-year-old Donna Bertrand and 19-year-old Dustin King delivered 48 wide-ranging recommendations Tuesday, including mandatory education and auditing of doctors and better systems for monitoring who can access pills.
Mr. King and Ms. Bertrand were found dead in the same apartment within days of each other. He died Nov. 21, 2008, of an OxyContin overdose, passed out on Ms. Bertrand’s couch, where he lay for hours before people in the downtown Brockville apartment noticed something was wrong.
She died 11 days later after ingesting a fatal mix of sedatives and antidepressants.
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