Vancouver, particularly the Downtown Eastside, is all too familiar with the opioid crisis.
British Columbia declared a public health emergency on April 14th, 2016, after opioid-related overdose deaths spiked. At least 3,600 more people have died since then, according to the City of Vancouver.
Kennedy Stewart, Mayor of Vancouver, believes that Vancouver is the “epicentre” of Canada’s overdose and opioid crisis.
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Vancouver’s Opioid Crisis
Because many of the overdose deaths were the result of tainted drugs, many professionals and advocates in the field believe that providing clean drugs is key to saving lives.
One public heath professor, UBC’s Dr. Mark Tyndall, has made a proposal that would take this one step further.
Dr. Tyndall, who is also the Executive Medical Director of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, believes that what Vancouver should do is install clean-drug vending machines.
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“The focus should be on treating this like a public health emergency, like it was declared. This is a poisoning epidemic, and like any other thing that people are being exposed to, we try to change that exposure”, Dr. Tyndall told CBC.
It’s not so much about ending the crisis as it is about mitigating the damage.
Overdose prevention sites, such as those operated by Vancouver Coastal Health, are gaining popularity, and while Dr. Tyndall agrees with the rationale behind them, he believes they aren’t enough.
“It excludes a lot of people who are just never going to go in three times a day and be observed using drugs”, he said.
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Tyndall first discussed the clean-drug vending machine idea in 2017. He first proposed that it begin on a smaller scale, but he now believes the city should implement this on a larger scale.
His belief is that if users continue to use drugs from unregulated sources, overdoses will only continue to grow and more people will continue to die.
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