Addiction experts call for national opioid strategy as overdose deaths rise
TORONTO — Canada needs a comprehensive national strategy to curb rampant overprescribing of opioids and to reduce escalating numbers of deaths caused by overdoses of the powerful narcotics, addiction experts say.
Writing in Monday’s edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr. Benedikt Fischer of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and co-authors say an estimated 2,000 Canadians died from opioid overdoses in 2015, and many provinces are on track for an even higher number of deaths in 2016.
“It’s a real public health disaster,” Fischer said in an interview. “Over the last 10 years, we’re looking at somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 dead people in Canada just from opioid overdoses alone.”
In a separate report Monday, the Toronto centre urged Ottawa to launch a review of all prescription painkillers sold in Canada and said high-dose opioid medications should be pulled from the market.