Small city's opioid addiction task force serves as case study for a proactive approach to drug addiction.

In a small city approximately 125 kilimetres northeast of Toronto in Sourthern Ontario, a drug task force has been created to tackle opioid addiction.

In May of 2009, the city of Peterborough, Ont., created a drug task force, partnering the Peterborough County-City Health Unit and members of the city police force, after police noticed that opioids were rapidly becoming a problem, replacing even crack-cocaine as the city’s drug of choice.

The primary goal of the task force is to address drug addiction at the root, concentrating on prevention over prohibition. Working with schools and students, the task force is looking to stop drug use before addiction sets in.

Previously teenagers who were caught with marijuana or prescription painkillers would simply be warned and have the drugs confiscated. Now, Peterborough police have become proactive, instituting instead a referral system whereby police refer caught teens to community agencies that offer drug counselling.

They are then monitored on an on-going basis to see if they are charged or caught with drugs again.

The task force sees drug counseling as a chance to get to the root of addiction problems before it begins, addressing why these teens are using drugs to begin with.

The previous warning system, conversely, had no means of attending to the why, simply the what.

Peterborough’s OxyContin task force is also looking to end drug trafficking in schools with a focus on building strong relationships with both teachers and students, instead of filling hallways with uniformed officers.

All in all, this small city is an interesting case study on a proactive approach to drug addiction that appears to yield results. The task force focuses on building relationships and networks within the community, looking to also include the medical community including both physicians and dentists to address the source of these prescription medications.

The vast majority of teens find their drugs in their own medicine cabinets.

Many local pharmacists in Peterborough are now passing the message along, encouraging parents to keep track of and secure their prescription medications.

Opioids are a class of drugs that include such prescription painkillers as OxyContin and Percocet, as well as heroin.

Source: The Peterborough Examiner

According to a new report from the CBC, OxyContin has become the most commonly abused drug in Ottawa.

OxyContin has overtaken crack as the most commonly abused drug in Ottawa. In 2007-08 alone, about $54 million worth of OxyContin prescriptions were filled in Ontario. As well, in the five-year period between 2004 and 2009, over 450 deaths in the province were associated with OxyContin abuse.

However, the province is also taking this trend seriously.

Recently, the Ontario Health Ministry announced that it would lead a national investigation into OxyContin addiction and use. The province is also looking at imposing new guidelines for prescribing the drug and introducing a tracking system to help curb “double doctoring”, where patients seek out several health professionals in order to obtain multiple prescriptions for either personal use or resale.

OxyContin is highly lucrative, with very high profit margins. In response, Ottawa has also seen a rash of pharmacy robberies.

OxyContin is a prescription painkiller from the oxycodone family. As an opiate, it is similar to morphine and heroin. When chewed or crushed and snorted, it produces a rapid heroin-like euphoria.

OxyContin, and prescription medications in general, have come under great scrutiny with several celebrity deaths associated with their abuse.

The rise of Oxycontin addiction has been seen across Canada.

Source: CBC News

According to addiction workers, Winnipeg is seeing a dramatic rise in heroin use amongst inner-city drug users—a concerning trend.

Heroin use has always been extremely low in Manitoba, with abuse rates near zero. However recently, the province is seeing a trend in both increased heroin use and intravenous-drug users in the Winnipeg core.

Concerned health workers say that the trend means heightened risks of overdose, Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS among the region’s intravenous drug users.

Manitoba’s addiction workers are reporting:

• A rise in the number of opiate addictions in the last 12 months, most notably in the prescription painkiller Oxycontin
• A drastic increase in the number of heroin users in the last year

Opiate addiction started with middle-class suburban youth, but has since spread to the inner city. Meanwhile, the method of use has gone from snorting the drugs in powder form to injection.

Manitoba is seeing an increase in addiction and use of opiates of all kinds—not simply heroin, but other opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin and fentanyl.

As well, there seems to be an overall increase in intravenous drug use, where drugs that aren’t traditionally consider an intravenous drug, like fentanyl, are being used as such. It seems, reports one drug addiction worker, that Manitoban drug addicts are experimenting, possibly due to the relatively low availability of these drugs.

Furthermore, the province is experiencing a shortage of treatment spaces to meet this increased demand. There is currently anywhere from a three to 12-month wait for methadone treatment, a common addiction treatment method for opioid addiction from heroin to Oxycontin, with 147 individuals already on the wait list.

Some addiction workers fear the results of a province-wide systematic crackdown on prescription opiate use.

Some are asking if the government cracks down on the drugs, making them no longer as easily available or more risky to seek out, will these addicts turn to heroin to get their fix?

Does this perhaps already help to explain the current increase in heroin’s popularity?

Source: Winnipeg Free Press