On the issue of displacement in the U.S., using the combined data from the 2002, 2004, 2008 to 2010 national survey on drug use and health, a recent study has shown that 77% of those reporting both non-medical prescription pain relievers and heroin use in the past year were found to have initiated non-medical use of pain relievers prior to initiating heroin use. Although the discontinuation of one drug cannot account for all transition from non-medical pain relief to heroin use, it may be a significant role.
I'll close by saying what we believe. We will submit a more comprehensive brief in the coming months. It is being translated at the moment.
We feel it's a component of a comprehensive overdose strategy around both illegal opioids and prescription opioids. This is an overlapping public health problem that we have and people move back and forth between both of those markets, and then there are accidental overdose deaths when people are attempting to take medication as prescribed.
We recommend that the federal government adopt a comprehensive approach to overdose prevention and response that includes six key components.
One would be to make naloxone more readily available and cost effective by including it in provincial drug plans and making it available over the counter.
Two would be to scale up community-based and institutional overdose programs training on how to prevent, recognize, and respond to overdose. I just took one of those at the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy conference. It takes about an hour.
Three, would be to scale up overdose training programs for first responders.
Four would be to reduce the barriers to calling 911 during a drug overdose event so that people do not fear police arriving and arresting them for some other drug charge during an overdose event. The Vancouver Police Department has a policy of not routinely responding to overdose calls unless they're asked to by ambulance attendants. This could be expanded to other departments.
Five would be to implement appropriate guidelines for opioid prescription that do not limit access to needed pain medication or result in further discrimination against people who use drugs.
Six would be to increase the timely collection, analysis, and dissemination of data on drug overdose events.
This is probably one of the more important recommendations, because in the literature that I've read, Canada really does need to get much better at monitoring and collecting data so that we can come up with some sound policy decisions based on some sound evidence.
Thank you very much .