John

The iOAT Program was for injections, so obviously it would have to be witnessed. Sadly the program only took 20 people so it make much of a dent in the problem. The second link is about the OERC response, it has nothing to do with Safe Supply. I’ve been a member of my city’s CAT since 2018 so I’m well aware of when programs became available and what they are. By the doctors logic we should stop the Safe Supply Program and send all the people who have stabilized their lives and stopped using toxic street drugs, back to using toxic street drugs, most of whom will die because they have no tolerance for them. I repeat, we’ve been here before and thousands are dead, doing it again would cause the same thing. I’d be interested in hearing how the doctor sees a “witnessed” Dilaudid program working, which has never been a “witnessed” program since it’s inception. How do people get the medication when the pharmacy is closed? Or not open on a Sunday? What do they do when store security bans them because they are hanging around the pharmacy or keep coming back every few hours? Because we know that’s going to happen. Methadone is not given in a “clinical setting” it’s given at a pharmacy, the whole process takes about 2 minutes, customers drink, sign and leave. That’s it! Suboxone is given out like any other medication. Once a person has demonstrated that they will get to the pharmacy daily for their methadone, they can start to get weekly carrys. A term not used for diversion, abuse or anything else by any of the addiction doctors that I deal with. It’s interesting that this opinion piece is thought to be the only correct opinion by the publisher. Not exactly unbiased journalism

“And we need safe supply drugs to revert back to what they were before COVID-19 turned everything upside down: a witnessed option for only the most entrenched drug users.” This sentence shows he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Safe Supply didn’t exist before Covid. It’s also never been “witnessed” and everyone but this doctor knows that when we talk about “carry’s” we are referring to methadone, not Safe Supply. He seems quite confused about the Safe Supply Program. As far as “do no harm” is concerned, if doctors hadn’t handed out OxyContin like they were candy, bc of lies and kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies, which caused dependency and addiction in many of their patients, which they claim they didn’t know/notice (BS) and then when doctors got caught, they cut people off with no weaning process. Which caused many people to turn to street drugs and started the overdose crisis we are in now!! They were the original dealer for thousands but ya “do no harm”