Adam Zivo: B.C. winds down practice of sending addicts home with free drugs

Users of 'safer supply' drugs need medical supervision. It shouldn't have taken years for the province to learn that

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British Columbia recently mandated that, starting from the end of this month, most “safer supply” drugs must be consumed under medical supervision in an effort to keep them from being diverted to the black market. While this reform is laudable and will help keep dangerous opioids off Canadian streets, it is reprehensible that the province dragged its feet for years here.

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“Safer supply” refers to the experimental practice of prescribing addicts free recreational drugs — typically hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid — with minimal supervision under the assumption that this dissuades use of riskier street substances.

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Although the BC NDP aggressively championed safer supply throughout the 2010s and 2020s, it eventually backpedalled after media reports showed that many recipients sell their free hydromorphone to purchase illicit street fentanyl, and that this floods communities with diverted opioids, fuelling addiction.

This course-correction was glacial and grudging, though. When the National Post, citing over a dozen addiction doctors across Canada,

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