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Addictions

Province providing $17 Million to double crisis teams in Edmonton adding support throughout the city

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Helping people in need, keeping Edmonton safe

Alberta’s government is partnering with the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) to help address the addiction crisis by connecting more people to much-needed supports.

Alberta’s government is continuing to take action to keep communities safe while treating mental health and addiction as health care issues. Through Budget 2023, an investment of $17 million over three years will double the number of Human-centred Engagement and Liaison Partnership (HELP) teams in Edmonton and provide recovery-oriented health supports to people in EPS custody.

“We are continuing to take a fair, firm and compassionate approach towards addressing addiction and mental health issues while keeping communities safe. Police are vital partners in addressing the complex social challenges facing Edmonton, and our government is proud to be partnering with them to help connect Albertans to the supports that they need.”

Nicholas Milliken, Minister of Mental Health and Addiction

“Edmonton police are serving on the front lines of the addiction crisis and have an important role to play. This funding brings together health professionals, community partners and police through partnerships that share a common goal: helping more people get well and pursue recovery while keeping our communities safe.”

Mike Ellis, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services and chair, Edmonton Public Safety and Community Response Task Force

“As MLA for Edmonton-South West, I am pleased to see that our government has allotted much needed funding to create more HELP teams to support the Edmonton Police Service. The new support will help address the public safety, mental health and addiction crisis in the city. The safety of the people of Edmonton is paramount. No one should be afraid to walk alone in our streets. We all share a common goal of providing adequate supports while keeping our communities safe”.

Kaycee Madu, MLA for Edmonton-South West

This funding includes:

  • $3.5 million for 12 new social navigator positions and two team leads, which will double the number of HELP teams in Edmonton
  • $2 million for eight new social navigator positions to support the EPS Divergence and Desistance Branch
  • $2.4 million for eight mental health therapists to support Edmonton’s 911 Dispatch Centre and EPS officers over the phone with clinical expertise
  • $6.3 million to add the following health professionals:
    • two full-time health care practitioners, two paramedics, two recovery coaches and 12 community safety officers at EPS Downtown Division
    • two paramedics at EPS Northwest Division
  • $2 million for equipment, training, administrative and other related costs 
  • $858,000 in one-time capital funding for six new HELP team vehicles and facility upgrades

These initiatives are part of ongoing efforts led by the Edmonton Public Safety and Community Response Task Force to improve public safety while treating addiction and mental health as health care issues. These efforts also include tripling the number of Police and Crisis Teams (PACT) in Edmonton to support people experiencing a mental health crisis.

Expanding outreach teams in Edmonton

Like many large cities, Edmonton has been hard hit by the addiction crisis, and this is especially evident in the downtown area. Expanding outreach teams in Edmonton will help respond to an urgent need to connect people struggling with mental health and addiction to critical services and mitigate social disorder.

“Community wellness and community safety go hand in hand. The HELP team has shown impressive results, and we are proud to continue building on their good work and introduce more integrated health services for people in police custody. We are grateful for the support of the government. These actions are important steps in responding to the complex social issues facing our city.”

Dale McFee, chief of police, Edmonton Police Service and member, Edmonton Public Safety and Community Response Task Force

“Additional support for the HELP teams is positive news for Edmonton. This investment is key in breaking the cycle, by shifting the focus on mental health and addiction away from enforcement and directing individuals to programs and services that can help them live with hope and dignity.”

Tim Cartmell, pihêsiwin Ward councillor, City of Edmonton and member, Edmonton Public Safety and Community Response Task Force

Alberta’s government is doubling the number of HELP teams in Edmonton. These teams pair police officers with social navigators from local community organizations who can help Albertans access recovery-oriented supports. The province is also providing funding to add social navigators to the EPS Divergence and Desistance Branch, which works with individuals who most frequently interact with the health and justice systems, and to place AHS mental health therapists in Edmonton’s 911 Dispatch Centre and to have mental health therapists available to support EPS officers over the phone with clinical expertise.

Providing addiction and mental health support in police custody

Police officers frequently respond to calls related to addiction and mental health. By offering a range of services and supports for people in police custody, Alberta’s government can support Albertans with complex addiction and mental health challenges while improving public safety for everyone.

People detained on a public intoxication charge will be assessed and provided options for treatment and support in a secure environment at the Edmonton Police Service Downtown Division. This location is close to both the downtown core and Chinatown, which are areas of Edmonton where significant public safety concerns have been identified by the city, local businesses, business associations and Edmontonians. Health professionals will offer medical support, connect clients with other social and mental health and addiction supports, and provide referrals to programs like the Virtual Opioid Dependency Program, which provides same-day access to life-saving medications.

In December 2022, Alberta’s government established two cabinet task forces to bring community partners together to address the issues of addiction, homelessness and public safety in Calgary and Edmonton. The two Public Safety and Community Response Task Forces are responsible for implementing $187 million in provincial funding to further build out a recovery-oriented system of addiction and mental health care. The initiatives being implemented are part of a fair, firm and compassionate approach to keeping communities safe while treating addiction and mental health as health care issues.

Budget 2023 secures Alberta’s future by transforming the health care system to meet people’s needs, supporting Albertans with the high cost of living, keeping our communities safe and driving the economy with more jobs, quality education and continued diversification.

Quick facts

  • Health services staff at the EPS Downtown Division will be able to assess and help up to 17 people at any given time.
  • This funding is part of the $63 million for initiatives that specifically increase access to addiction treatment and support in Edmonton, implemented through the Edmonton Public Safety and Community Response Task Force.
  • Albertans experiencing addiction or mental health challenges can contact 211 for information on services in their community. 211 is free, confidential and available 24-7.
  • Albertans struggling with opioid addiction can contact the Virtual Opioid Dependency Program (VODP) by calling 1-844-383-7688, seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. VODP provides same-day access to addiction medicine specialists. There is no wait list.

Addictions

‘Our Liberal Government Is Acting Like A Drug Lord’: A Mother’s Testimony

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By Adam Zivo

“As soon as [my son] was put on safe supply, he started diverting his safe supply” Mom tells Parliament safer supply isn’t working

“The whole purpose of the safer supply program was to divert addicts from using harmful street drugs, but that’s not happening,” testified Masha Krupp, an Ottawa-based mother, at the House of Commons Health Committee last week. Exhausted and blunt, she described how her son has, in the past, diverted his “safer supply” drugs to the black market and how she has personally witnessed widespread diversion, by other patients, outside the clinic her son attends.

Safer supply programs distribute free addictive drugs – typically hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid – under the belief that this stabilizes addicts and dissuades them from consuming riskier street substances. Addiction experts and police leaders across Canada, however, say that recipients regularly divert these taxpayer-funded drugs to the black market, fueling new addictions and gang profits.

The Liberals and NDP have denied that widespread safer supply diversion is occurring, despite ample evidence to the contrary – but Krupp’s lived experiences underline the folly of their willful blindness.

“As soon as he was put on safe supply, he started diverting his safe supply,” she testified. “You’ve got drug dealers – I know this for a fact through my son; I’ve seen it – they will come to your home, 24/7, you can call two in the morning. They take your hydromorphone pills.”

According to Krupp, her son’s addiction issues have not improved despite him being enrolled in a safer supply program for more than two years. He still uses fentanyl and crack cocaine, which led to yet another overdose just last month, she said, adding that diversion and a lack of recovery-oriented services contribute to his instability.

“The Dilaudid (brand name hydromorphone) is a means of currency for my son to continue using crack cocaine – so it’s not safe, because he’s still using unsafe street drugs,” she said in parliament.

Krupp further explained that, on multiple occasions, she witnessed and photographed patients selling their safer supply in front of the clinic where her son has been a patient since June 2021. The transactions were not subtle: she could see them counting and exchanging white pills.

Over time, Krupp corroborated these observations by acquainting herself with some of these patients, who would admit to selling their safer supply: “I get to know all these people that are diverting and using right in front of the clinic, in front of all the tourists, parents walking by with kids.”

She believes that safer supply could have a role in addiction care if it were better regulated, but feels that the current model, where supervised consumption of these drugs is rarely required, is only “flooding the market, using taxpayers’ dollars, with lethal opiates…”

“It’s unsafe supply, in my view, as a mother with lived experience,” said Krupp. “Our Liberal government, right now, is acting like a drug lord.”

Her testimony was consistent with what was described in a CBC investigative report published last February, wherein Ottawa’s police officers confirmed that safer supply diversion is rampant.

One constable quoted in the story, Paul Stam, said that virtually anytime police would pull up to Rideau and Nelson street, where the clinic Krupp’s son attends is located, “they would observe people openly trafficking in diverted hydromorphone.” The officer further told the CBC that the “street is flooded with this pharmaceutical grade hydromorphone” and that there has been a dramatic, province-wide reduction in the drug’s blackmarket price – from $8-9 per 8-mg pill to just $1-2 today.

Although Krupp gave her parliamentary testimony last week, I interviewed her in July and kept her story private at her request – at the time, she worried that going public could interfere with her son’s attempts at recovery.

In the July interview, Krupp explained that, not only had her son told her that safer supply diversion is ubiquitous, she had also heard this from two acquaintances of his, who were also on the program: “The information that I’ve received is that the drug dealers have operations set up 24/7 across the city, buying legal dillies (the slang term for hydromorphone).”

She explained that she had been able to witness and document safer supply diversion because, on most Friday mornings, she would take her son to his clinic appointments and wait for him outside in her car. As she was often parked just two or three metres away from where many drug deals occurred, she had a line of sight into what was going on: clearly-identifiable dillies being handed over for other drugs.

She estimated that, by that point, she had cumulatively witnessed at least 25 safer supply patients engage in diversion.

“[Safer supply patients] would trade their dillies for fentanyl and/or crack cocaine and smoke or inject it right in front of me. They would just huddle in a corner. It’s all done very openly,” she said. “What I witness, to me, is a human tragedy on the sidewalks of the nation’s capital, with Parliament Hill eight or nine blocks away, and all the politicians sitting there singing praises to safer supply.”

She pushed back on the narrative, popular among Liberal and NDP politicians, that criticism of safer supply is conservative fear mongering and said that she had voted NDP in the past, and had even voted for Trudeau in 2015. Her disgust with safer supply was simply her “speaking from the heart as a mother.”

While harm reduction activists claim that safer supply is a form of compassionate care, Krupp vehemently disagreed: “How is it compassionate to fuel somebody’s addiction? How is it humane to keep a perpetual cycle of drug abuse and dependence?”

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Addictions

New documentary exposes safer supply as gateway to teen drug use

Published on

By: Alexandra Keeler

In a new documentary, Port Coquitlam teens describe how safer supply drugs are diverted to the streets, contributing to youth drug use

Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills meant for safer supply, but readily available on the streets.

“Multiple people walking up the street, down the street, saying ‘dillies, dillies,’ and that’s how you get them,” Madison said, referring to dealers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Madison says she could get pills for $1.25 each, when purchased directly from someone receiving the drugs through safer supply — a provincial program that provides drug users with prescribed opioids. Madison would typically buy a whole bottle to last a week.

But as her tolerance grew, so did her addiction, leading her to try fentanyl.

“The dillies weren’t hitting me anymore … I tried [fentanyl] and instantly I just melted,” she said.

Kamilah Sword, Madison’s best friend, was just 14 when she died of an overdose on Aug. 20, 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill dispensed through safer supply.

Madison, along with Kamilah’s father, Gregory Sword, are among the Port Coquitlam, B.C., residents featured in a documentary by journalist Adam Zivo. The film uncovers how safer supply drugs — intended as a harm reduction measure — contribute to harm among youth by being highly accessible, addictive and dangerous.

Through emotional interviews with teens and their families, the film links these drugs to overdose deaths and explores how they can act as a gateway to stronger substances like fentanyl.

Some last names are omitted to respect the victims’ desire for privacy.

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‘Not a myth’

Safer supply aims to reduce overdose deaths by providing individuals with substance use disorders access to pharmaceutical-grade alternatives, such as hydromorphone.

But some policy experts, health officials and journalists are concerned these drugs are being diverted onto the streets — particularly hydromorphone, which is often sold under the brand name Dilaudid and nicknamed “dillies.”

Zivo, the film’s director, points out the disinformation surrounding safer supply diversion, highlighting that some drug legalization activists downplay the issue of diversion.

In 2023, B.C.’s then-chief coroner Lisa Lapointe dismissed claims that individuals were collecting their safer supply medications and selling them to youth, thereby creating new opioid dependencies and contributing to overdose deaths. She labeled such claims an “urban myth.”

In the film, Madison describes how teen substance users would occasionally accompany people enrolled in the safer supply program to the pharmacy, where they would fill their prescriptions and then sell the drugs to the teens.

“It’s not a myth, because my best friend died from it,” she says in the film.

Fiona Wilson, deputy chief of the Vancouver Police Department, testified on April 15 to the House of Commons health committee studying Canada’s opioid crisis that about 50 per cent of hydromorphone seizures by police are linked to safer supply.

Deputy Chief of the Vancouver Police Department, Fiona Wilson, testified on April 15 during the House of Commons ‘Opioid Epidemic and Toxic Drug Crisis in Canada’ health committee meeting.

Additionally, Ottawa Police Sergeant Paul Stam previously confirmed to Canadian Affairs that similar reports of diverted safer supply drugs have been observed in Ottawa.

“Hopefully, by giving these victims a platform and bringing their stories to life, the film can impress upon Canadians the urgent need for reform,” Zivo told Canadian Affairs.

‘Creating addicts’

The teens featured in the film share their experiences with the addictive nature of dillies.

“After doing them for like a month, it felt like I needed them everyday,” says Amelie North, one teen featured in the documentary. “I felt like I couldn’t stand being alive without being on dillies.”

Madison explains how tolerance builds quickly. “You just keep doing them until it’s not enough at all.”

Madison started using fentanyl at the age of 12, leading to a near-fatal overdose after just one hit at a SkyTrain station. “It took five Narcan kits to save my life,” she says in the film.

Many of her friends use dillies or have tried fentanyl, she says. She estimates half the students at her school do.

“Government-supplied hydromorphone is a dangerous domino in the cascade of an addict’s downward spiral to ever more risky behaviour,” said Madison’s mother, Beth, to Canadian Affairs.

“The safe drug supply is creating addicts, not helping addicts,” Denise Fenske, North’s mother, told Canadian Affairs.

“I’m not sure when politicians talk about all the beds they have opened up for youth with drug or alcohol problems, where they actually are and how do we access them?”

Sword, Kamilah’s father, expressed his concern in an email to Canadian Affairs. “I want the people [watching the film] to understand how easy this drug is to get for the kids and how many kids it is affecting, the pain it causes the loved ones, [with] no answers or help for them.”

Screenshot: Dr. Matthew Orde reviewing Kamilah Sword’s toxicology report during his interview for the filming of ‘Government Heroin 2: The Invisible Girls’ in March 2024.

Autopsy

Kamilah’s death raises further concerns.

According to Dr. Matthew Orde, a forensic pathologist featured in the film, Kamilah’s toxicology report revealed a mix of depressants and stimulants, including flualprazolam (a benzo), benzoylecgonine (a cocaine byproduct), MDMA and hydromorphone.

Orde criticizes the BC Coroners Service for not following best practices by focusing solely on cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine and MDMA, while overlooking the potential role of benzos and hydromorphone.

Orde notes that in complex poly-drug deaths, an autopsy is typically performed to determine the cause more accurately. He says he was shocked that Kamilah’s case did not receive this level of investigation.

B.C. has one of the lowest autopsy rates in Canada.

Zivo told Canadian Affairs he thinks a public inquiry into Kamilah’s case and other youth deaths involving hydromorphone since 2020 is needed to assess if the province is accurately reporting the harms of safer supply.

“That just angers me that our coroners did not do what most of Canada would have done,” Sword told Canadian Affairs.

“It also makes me question why they didn’t do an autopsy, what is our so-called government hiding?”

Government Heroin 2: The Invisible Girls is available for free on YouTube.


This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.

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