{"id":17842,"date":"2020-10-28T10:37:23","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T14:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=17842"},"modified":"2020-10-30T10:50:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T14:50:23","slug":"b-c-s-ex-top-doctor-explains-about-why-he-wants-to-mass-produce-safer-heroin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/b-c-s-ex-top-doctor-explains-about-why-he-wants-to-mass-produce-safer-heroin\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C.\u2019s ex-top doctor explains about why he wants to mass-produce safer heroin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By David P. Ball<\/em><br \/>\n---<br \/>\n<strong>British Columbia could soon see its one supply of prescription heroin to help save drug user\u2019s lives during the fentanyl crisis \u2014 but only if governments show some political will, says the province\u2019s top doctor. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Former Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall, who retired in 2018, passed the torch to Dr Bonnie Henry \u2014 who is now the respected face of B.C.\u2019s COVID-19 pandemic response. <\/p>\n<p>Since then, he\u2019s become co-interim Executive Director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bccsu.ca\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">B.C. Centre on Substance Use<\/a>. But he is also taking up an effort to do something that\u2019s long been a challenge for public health officials working on drug policy. <\/p>\n<p>Health experts agree a safe supply of pharmaceutical-grade narcotics \u2014 from heroin to cocaine, dilaudid to benzos and other sought-after substances \u2014 is a key pillar of reducing overdose deaths. <\/p>\n<p>But neither B.C., nor Canada, is capable of sourcing enough heroin supply to meet the demand. So during the pandemic\u2019s emergency safe supply plan pioneered by the province, heroin was one drug of the table. Users had to seek out similar alternatives, or analogs. <\/p>\n<p> Now, Dr Kendall is involved with a company trying to produce heroin right here in Canada. Fair Price Pharma hopes to manufacture a safer supply of prescription heroin, and is led by the researcher who led the famous NAOMI and SALOME prescription heroin studies that proved scientifically that a safe supply actually saves lives. <\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s a catch, Dr Kendall explains. And that falls to governments both provincial and federal to clear the legal obstacles to realizing their vision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David P. Ball &#8212; British Columbia could soon see its one supply of prescription heroin to help save drug user\u2019s lives during the fentanyl crisis \u2014 but only if governments show some political will, says the province\u2019s top doctor. Former Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall, who retired in 2018, passed the torch to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":17849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[223],"tags":[2624,2625,2623],"radio":[237],"origine":[280,262,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17842"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=17842"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=17842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}