ASK Wellness CEO Bob Hughes says he'd like to see people addicted to dangerous street drugs transitioned to safer prescription medications (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

ADDICTION AWARENESS WEEK

While overdose crisis improves, advocates say treatment for addictions needs to get better

Nov 28, 2019 | 4:38 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s National Addiction Awareness Week. Advocates in Kamloops say the week dedicated to addictions speaks to how damaging it has been in the community and across the country, especially around the overdose crisis.

They acknowledge the situation has turned around, but there is still more to be done.

“This is a call to action this week for our community and for the province and the country to say that we’ve been living in an unprecedented addictions crisis that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before,” said ASK Wellness CEO Bob Hughes.

2018 marked the height of the overdose crisis in B.C. There were more than 1,500 deaths due to illicit drugs. However, the number has dropped significantly this year with 690 fatalities through August 2019.

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“We’ve seen a shift. We’ve seen less overdoses happening that we’ve had to respond to,” said Hughes. “We’ve had a slight decline in the number of fatal overdoses. We’re starting to turn the tide on the opiate crisis a bit.”

In Kamloops, there have been 24 overdose deaths so far compared to 46 in 2018. Hughes says now the attention should shift to the contaminated drug supply. He is, however, still concerned with people addicted to methamphetamines.

“It’s taken a back seat to the urgent need to deal with the contaminated opiates,” he noted. “We’ve had people asking questions. ‘What are we doing with people using methamphetamines and the impact?’ Talk to the hospital and you’ll see that it’s a revolving door for many folks with acute methamphetamine, so crystal meth addiction.”

Dr. Mandy Manak, the medical director of the Interior Chemical Dependency Office, added, “For us to stop that revolving door at detox and Royal Inland Hospital, we need to actually get people into recovery instead of just patching them through.”

Manak says recovery goes beyond addiction. It’s about dealing with psycho-social issues and childhood traumas among other things. She would like to see long-term treatment beds for people wanting to overcome their addiction.

“In Kamloops, we have one treatment centre, which is a private, for-profit centre. We have nothing in Kamloops for people who are marginalized, who don’t want to use drugs anymore but really can’t get very far in Kamloops,” said Dr. Manak.

In the short term, Hughes wants people who are addicted to illicit drugs to be switched to prescription medications like methadone, which he says has saved people’s lives.

“When you prescribe a medication that may be still an addictive medication, but it’s prescribed, it’s safe. It doesn’t have the same stigma that street drugs do. People stabilize and get well.”