Thank you for that opportunity.
I was listening carefully in my headpiece, but please stop me if I've misinterpreted the question.
You're speaking about youth and the concern that safe supply is being diverted to youth. I think it's really tragic that Canadian youth are actually also being used in this polarizing rhetoric about the potential impacts of safe supply, because I do believe they're being used.
Coroners in B.C. and Ontario carefully monitor overdose deaths. There is absolutely no data to support that children are accessing hydromorphone and dying from it. In fact, we see children overwhelmingly dying of the toxic illicit fentanyl supply when they do have an overdose.
I'm the parent to a small child. Would I ever want her to be able to access opioids? No, I wouldn't. All safe supply clinicians are like that, and we take all of the precautions that are available to us to make sure that our own patients are taking the medication.
Is it perfect? It's not perfect, and maybe you'll give me a chance to speak to our diversion protocols, which are very robust. Again, this dialogue that you see in the media and by critics of safe supply, about the children.... I think it's quite sickening that Canadian children are used in this way, because the data does not support these assertions whatsoever.