Many people know about the opioid/opiate epidemic in the United States. They might not know about a similar epidemic in Canada, an epidemic that is just as deadly.
How deadly? In 2017, Canada reported at least 2,816 deaths due to opiate/opioid abuse. This number is especially startling when you consider that the population of the country is about 35.1 million people. That’s one opioid-related death for every 12,400 people or so.
In comparison, the population of the United States in 2016 was around 325 million people. According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), opioids/opiates contributed to 42,249 deaths in the United States in 2016, or one opioid/opiate-related death for every 7,600 people or so.
Canada is taking some interesting approaches to combat opiate/opioid abuse. One of these tactics is the operation of supervised injection sites in Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa.
Supervised injection sites are facilities that allow drug users to use drugs under medical supervision. Such supervision allows users to receive immediate medical attention if they overdose, which could reduce the number of overdose-related deaths and other complications.
Some supervised injection sites offer clean needles as well. This measure could reduce the number of infectious diseases in drug users who inject their drugs with needles, since contaminated needles can easily spread the viruses for diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.
Methods such as supervised injection sites are known as harm reduction tactics. This means that they reduce the harm related to certain activities but don’t ban the activities entirely.
Harm reduction tactics acknowledge that some people don’t seek rehab help, even if they desperately need it. Harm reduction tactics make it possible for such addicts to live healthier lives in the meantime. And, if they don’t have infections, these users carry less risk of harming others as well.
Harm reduction tactics thus help individuals and the greater community. Canada’s harm reduction tactics are similar to other risk-reducing methods in European countries. Would these tactics work in the United States? If the country experienced 42,249 deaths just due to opioids/opiates alone, it seems it wouldn’t hurt to try.
