Answer Addiction

Tag: Vancouver

  • Harm Reduction Program Offers Cannabis As Alternative To Hard Drugs

    Harm Reduction Program Offers Cannabis As Alternative To Hard Drugs

    The Canadian program also offers free fentanyl testing strips and naloxone training.

    A Canadian harm reduction program is hitting the local opioid addiction crisis from a unique angle—by providing cannabis at little to no cost as an alternative to street drugs.

    The High Hopes Foundation, based in Vancouver, Canada—also home to North America’s first legal supervised injection site (SIF)—is the country’s first “full-time cannabis harm reduction program,” CTV News reports.

    While this isn’t the first recovery program to feature cannabis as a treatment, it’s still a rather novel idea that some consider controversial. But Sarah Blyth, president of High Hopes, says the program is a realistic approach to attacking the most potent addictions.

    “It’s not always possible for people to just completely come off all drugs, because they’ve got trauma. They have pain. They need something,” Blyth said last August, according to CBC. “Opiates may not be the best option for everyone so we’re trying to give them the options we have available.”

    High Hopes offers free or low-cost cannabis and CBD oils to people trying to wean off drugs like opioids, which have been a big problem in Canada as well.

    According to CTV News, nearly 4,000 Canadians died of opioid overdose in 2017; about 1,400 of them were in British Columbia, the province that Vancouver resides in.

    The foundation also offers free fentanyl testing strips and naloxone training. According to Blyth, the majority of illicit drug samples analyzed by the Vancouver Overdose Prevention Society tested positive for fentanyl, which raises the risk of overdose.

    The cannabis program, established last year, started out by collecting cannabis donations from registered patients or dispensaries. Once Canada’s marijuana legalization law goes into effect this October, perhaps High Hopes will have an easier time procuring legal cannabis.

    “What we are doing is not fully legal but we see it helps and we are desperate to help people. Watching people die isn’t okay,” said Blyth.

    The program’s goal is to give people with addictions an alternative to using potentially dangerous street drugs. Blyth noted that many are just seeking relief for pain, anxiety or inflammation. “It gives them a way to have an alternative to the drugs that they’re getting on the street,” said Blyth, who is also the founder of the Overdose Prevention Society. “It’s safe, it can reduce pain.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Vancouver Sees Success in Peer-Supervised Injection Sites

    Vancouver Sees Success in Peer-Supervised Injection Sites

    The chief coroner of British Columbia estimates that without the safe injection sites and without opioid antidotes, the death count would be triple what it is.

    In Vancouver, Canada, individuals who wish to use injection drugs have the option of doing so in a safe environment, supervised by their peers.

    According to NPR, downtown Vancouver is home to the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), a place that serves as a safe space for those using injection drugs. The location is equipped with various supplies like clean needles and sanitizing pads. On the wall, there is a poster highlighting the safest places on the body to inject. The site also provides treatment materials, if someone requests them.

    Hugh Lampkin, a site supervisor and vice president of VANDU, explained that the site’s injection room is an area where an attendant watches over individuals using drugs and administers overdose antidotes if necessary.

    The idea behind such sites, which are often peer-run, is harm reduction, Lampkin says. In other words, if people are going to use drugs, Lampkin and his colleagues would rather they do so in the safest manner possible to minimize the chance of overdose.

    Lampkin himself has a history of heroin use and discovered VANDU at a point when he was really struggling. VANDU hosted support groups and meetings, which Lampkin joined.

    “I was telling a bunch of strangers my life story, and it was something I’d never done before,” he told NPR. “After that just about everybody came up and either hugged me or shook my hand.”

    He says that in his experience, peer-run sites are preferred to sites run by authorities due to having fewer rules, no paperwork, and peer supervision.

    “If you put this up against another service provider where you have a PhD or a psychologist, I would put my money on a place like this.”

    According to Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer at Vancouver Coastal Health, these sites and the people that run them are helping authorities when it comes to the opioid crisis.

    “These community agencies and groups of peers and associations of drug users, they’re the ones who are making the innovations. They’re telling us what to do,” he said. “They showed us how to create pop-up supervised injection sites. They know the community, they know where to put these things. So they’ve been able to solve a lot of problems.”

    Vancouver officials say that no one has died at any of the medical or peer-run sites. Chief coroner of British Columbia, Lisa Lapointe, tells NPR  that without such sites and without opioid antidotes, her office estimates the death count would be triple what it is.

    Though injection drug use is illegal in Vancouver, NPR says, the police support the injection sites and do not make arrests. On the other hand, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the U.S. maintains that the sites host illegal activity and anyone involved with operating one could face legal consequences.

    View the original article at thefix.com