The local health unit is pushing for a change in the way society views addiction after revealing the level of opioid use in Chatham-Kent is above the provincial average.
The monthly meeting for CK Public Health Wednesday morning was highlighted by a presentation on the opioid crisis and how the municipality plans to fight it. According to the presentation, the first thing required is ending the stigma surrounding drug addiction.
"Changing this from a criminal matter into a health matter is the way to bring this out of the shadows, into the light and deal with it in a rational way," CK Health Unit's Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby said. "Most people become addicted after being prescribed opiates for medical reasons. We don't know how to reverse this dependency. It is a medical issue and it is a disease and it's not a choice, however, there is a choice for how one deals with it."
Colby said it would be incorrect to say there are no choices available to people in those situations. He added many drug users won't seek help though because of the negative way society looks upon people addicted to opioids. He said they shouldn't feel ashamed to get help because some people are genetically more susceptible to becoming addicted to the substance than others.
According to the doctor, abstinence is a choice that some people can make, but it isn't that easy for everyone.
"Can you imagine having a hunger that never leaves you and if everything else in your life is going well you might be able to cope with that for a long time," Colby said. "But when other stressors happen... it becomes a terrible burden to deal with this hunger and craving in addition to other things that are happening. That's when people tend to relapse."
Colby said the biggest concerns are people who go back to using after a long period of time because their tolerance is reduced. He said they will likely get it illegally so there is no way to know how potent the dose is that they are taking. He added no matter what, people with addictions will try to find a way to feed that hunger and the current system simply isn't working. Colby said if they feel compelled to use, there should be legal avenues available to them that can ensure the drug is safely administered opposed to the illicit market, which could become lethal.
Chatham-Kent has seen emergency department visits increase 225 per cent from 2003 to 2017 due to opioid poisoning, and 76 per cent alone between 2016 and 2017. Hospitalizations are up 45 per cent between 2003 and 2017 with deaths being under the provincial average, seeing 11 between 2015 and 2017.
Perhaps the most alarming statistic though is how many more patients in the municipality are being prescribed opiate medication compared to the rest of Ontario. According to the presentation, 16,084 residents received opioids for pain, which is 1.5 times the provincial average and 815 patients receiving opioid agonist therapy, which is two times the provincial average.
Colby said it is very disturbing that residents are being prescribed opiates at that high of a rate.
"This is being worked on through many professional sources within the medical industry," Colby said. "The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has produced a policy and there are many other professional education initiatives that are available to physicians to give them the skills to use these drugs wisely. To provide pain relief for people who need it without using it in such a way that people use it long enough to result in addiction."
The health unit recognized and is endorsing an action report from Toronto Public Health to expand opioid substitution treatment with managed programs. The report recommends that the federal government expand the use of opioid replacements and add other pharmaceuticals that can be used to replace the drug.
Endorsing the report was suggested by municipal Councillor Brock McGregor at the meeting.
"We need to look at the diversity of solutions that are out there and part of that includes looking at what other communities are doing and working together in Ontario and Canada to advocate for more tools to deal with this issue," McGregor said. "Toronto Public Health has done some really good work around this and we think we can add our voice to the issue and advocate for some of the solutions that we see will be effective in Ontario."
Originally McGregor only suggested writing to the provincial government but Colby said only the federal level has the power to make the change Toronto suggested and the rest of the members of the board agreed. Colby added something has to change because the "war on drugs," which was made famous by Richard Nixon in 1971, simply hasn't been working and a new approach is needed.
