New Evidence From British Columbia Provides a Strong Case for Harm Reduction Strategies

A study published last month in the peer-reviewed journal  Addiction by researchers at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use found that harm reduction strategies were responsible for the province ’s opioid-related overdose death rate being less than half of what it otherwise would have been between April 2016 and December 2017.The researchers noted that 77 percent of opioid-related overdose deaths during that time frame involved illicit fentanyl. Vancouver has long been a major port of entry for fentanyl and fentanyl analogs, produced in China and other parts of East Asia, often using historic seaborn  drug trade routes.  During the 23 months ending December 2017 there were 2,177 overdose deaths in British Columbia, according to the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Using mathematical modeling methodology to estimate monthly overdose and overdose-death risk along with the impact of harm reduction interventions, the researchers concluded an estimated 3,030 overdose deaths were averted.The three harm reduction strategies investigated were take-home naloxone kits, safe injection sites, and “opioid agonist therapy”— known in the U.S. as Medication Assisted Treatment (which includes methadone, buprenorphine, hydromorphone, and heroin assisted treatments in British Columbia). The researchers employed counterfactual simulations with the fitted mathematical model to estimate the numb er of deaths averte...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 8, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs