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Illicit drug use still tolerated in some B.C. hospital rooms, says recent patient

Published

6 months ago

9 minute read

Illustration courtesy of Midjourney

News release from Break The Needle

Vancouverite Mark Budworth says he was exposed to illicit drug smoke while recovering from an ankle replacement at St. Paul’s Hospital.

Two months ago, nurses across British Columbia said that the provincial government had allowed addicts to openly smoke illicit drugs, such as fentanyl and meth, in hospital rooms to the detriment of frontline workers and other patients. The province subsequently committed to banning the practice – but testimony from a recently hospitalized patient suggests that, at least in some hospitals, this crackdown may not have been serious.

Mark Budworth is a semi-retired Vancouverite in his early 60s who received a full ankle replacement at St. Paul’s Hospital, one of the province’s preeminent medical institutions, in mid-May. In a recent phone interview, he told Break The Needle that, during his four day stay, he was exposed to illicit drug use that was tolerated by staff and made him feel unsafe.

Though only one story, his account fits into a broader picture of rampant fentanyl trafficking and public disorder that has been bleeding into the province’s healthcare system, all to the seeming indifference of provincial officials.

The problems allegedly began after his surgery when he was wheeled into his hospital room, which was shared with another patient who seemed around 30 years old. “There was a strong smell of smoke. And it didn’t smell like tobacco smoke. It smelled like drugs,” said Budworth, who claimed that the hospital porters transporting him commented on the smell but were largely indifferent to it. To his knowledge, no attempts were made by staff to do anything about the apparent illicit drug use.

The next day, Budworth had a friend visit him. He said that the hospital roommate introduced himself to them and was in a “euphoric” and “confused” state, which made them uncomfortable and led the friend to later speculate that the roommate may have been high on meth. After the friend departed, the roommate allegedly left the room and, upon returning, told Budworth that he had bought $200 of fentanyl.

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Budworth said that, around midnight that night, he awoke and realized that his roommate, who sounded very intoxicated, was in the middle of an “aggressive” conversation with a female visitor, which sounded “a little scary.” He said the smell of illicit drug smoke lingered in the air and that he called the nurses who, in turn, summoned security guards. As the woman was being removed, security told her to pull her pants up from around her knees, he said.

The alleged incident left Budworth feeling unsafe, as he worried that he might face retaliation from his roommate. The hospital’s nurses refused to relocate him to a new room at first, but eventually relented after he persistently emphasized his safety concerns, he said.

In his second room, his new roommate was a homeless man who would often leave to smoke cigarettes and marijuana, he said. This new roommate allegedly told Budworth that the hospital’s fourth floor rooftop courtyard is an open drug market where people regularly fight and smoke fentanyl.

Budworth said that, throughout the rest of his stay, he spoke with several hospital staff and, though they were “wonderful,” his conversations with them suggested that illicit drug use was tolerated in the building. “The staff didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. It was normal,” he said.

He claimed to have spoken with four nurses, some of whom suggested that illicit drug use among patients was making their jobs difficult. “They’re people dealing with unlimited problems with limited resources,” he said.

After Budworth was discharged from the hospital, he wrote a letter to Health Minister Adrian Dix explaining his concerns, which he then forwarded to Break The Needle. “I’ve read a lot of articles about the nurses complaining. I hadn’t yet read an article about a patient complaining – patients’ experience. And that’s why I thought I should go on record,” he explained over the phone.

The conditions Budworth recalled at St. Paul’s were largely consistent with what was described in a news report published by Glacier Media Group in early April, before the province cracked down on open drug use in hospitals. In that report, a nurse who worked at the hospital told journalist Rob Shaw, “You can barely walk into some of the rooms, there’s needles and broken crack pipes and dirty food all over the floor.”

“Absolutely there are people throughout that hospital who are dealing and using everywhere,” said the nurse at the time. “We know they are drug dealers, and yet they come and go.”

Budworth’s testimony raises concerns about whether the provincial government’s attempts to control illicit drug use in hospitals have, at least in some instances, been unsuccessful.

In an emailed response sent to Break The Needle on May 30, a media representative of St. Paul’s stated that illicit drug use is not permitted anywhere in the hospital, except for an outdoor overdose prevention site (OPS) on the rooftop courtyard, which she said had received approximately 600 unique visits in the preceding two weeks.

The representative wrote that drug trafficking has “never been permitted” anywhere at the hospital, including the OPS. “Security has increased at our sites to support clinical teams as they respond to problematic behaviours, aggression, drug use, and illicit drug dealing in hospitals.”

But apparently those policies neither protected Budworth nor safeguarded his right to a dignified hospital stay free from illicit drugs and intimidating behaviour.

He blamed the province’s failed drug decriminalization experiment, which was recently scaled back by the BC NDP, and said that the decriminalization movement made him feel “uncomfortable” because, “We’re seeing people smoking fentanyl on the streets already… which is easy to walk away from when you’re mobile, but when you’re in a hospital bed and it’s happening in your room, it’s a little too close.”

“I was gonna vote NDP. I think the provincial government’s pretty good, but, with this experience, they lost my vote on this one… I don’t think that our current government and Victoria is really considering all the stakeholders on this issue,” he said.

[This article has been co-published with The Bureau, a Canadian media outlet that tackles corruption and foreign influence campaigns through investigative journalism. Subscribe to their work to get the latest updates on how organized crime influences the Canadian drug trade.]

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Addictions

Ontario to restrict Canadian government’s supervised drug sites, shift focus to helping addicts

Published on November 21, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government tabled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act that will place into law specific bans on where such drug consumption sites are located.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is making good on a promise to close so-called drug “supervision” sites in his province and says his government will focus on helping addicts get better instead of giving them free drugs.

Ford’s Progressive Conservative government on Monday tabled the Safer Streets, Stronger Communities Act that will place into law specific bans on where such drug consumption sites are located.

Specifically, the new bill will ban “supervised” drug consumption sites from being close to schools or childcare centers. Ten sites will close for now, including five in Toronto.

The new law would prohibit the “establishment and operation of a supervised consumption site at a location that is less than 200 meters from certain types of schools, private schools, childcare centers, Early child and family centers and such other premises as may be prescribed by the regulations.”

It would also in effect ban municipalities and local boards from applying for an “exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) for the purpose of decriminalizing the personal possession of a controlled substance or precursor.”

Lastly, the new law would put strict “limits” on the power municipalities and local boards have concerning “applications respecting supervised consumption sites and safer supply services.”

“Municipalities and local boards may only make such applications or support such applications if they have obtained the approval of the provincial Minister of Health,” the bill reads.

The new bill is part of a larger omnibus bill that makes changes relating to sex offenders as well as auto theft, which has exploded in the province in recent months.

In September, Ford had called the federal government’s lax drug policies tantamount to being the “biggest drug dealer in the entire country” and had vowed to act.

In speaking about the new bill, Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones said the Ford government does not plan to allow municipal requests to the government regarding supervised consumption sites.

“Municipalities and organizations like public health units have to first come to the province because we don’t want them bypassing and getting any federal approval for something that we vehemently disagree with,” Jones told the media on Monday.

She also clarified that “there will be no further safe injection sites in the province of Ontario under our government.”

Ontario will instead create 19 new intensive addiction recovery to help those addicted to deadly drugs.

Alberta and other provinces have had success helping addicts instead of giving them free drugs.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, deaths related to opioid and other drug overdoses in Alberta fell to their lowest levels in years after the Conservative government began to focus on helping addicts via a recovery-based approach instead of the Liberal-minded, so-called “safe-supply” method.

Despite public backlash with respect to supervised drug consumption sites, Health Canada recently approved 16 more drug consumption sites in Ontario. Ford mentioned in the press conference that each day he gets “endless phone calls about needles being in the parks, needles being by the schools and the daycares,” calling the situation “unacceptable.”

The Liberals claim their “safer supply” program is good because it is “providing prescribed medications as a safer alternative to the toxic illegal drug supply to people who are at high risk of overdose.”

However, studies have shown that these programs often lead an excess of deaths from overdose in areas where they are allowed.

While many of the government’s lax drug policies continue, they have been forced to backpedal on some of their most extreme actions.

After the federal government allowed British Columbia to decriminalize the possession of hard drugs including heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, meth and MDMA beginning January 1, 2023, reports of overdoses and chaos began skyrocketing, leading the province to request that Trudeau re-criminalize drugs in public spaces.

A week later, the federal government relented and accepted British Columbia’s request.

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Addictions

BC Addictions Expert Questions Ties Between Safer Supply Advocates and For-Profit Companies

Published on November 20, 2024

By

By Liam Hunt

Canada’s safer supply programs are “selling people down the river,” says a leading medical expert in British Columbia. Dr. Julian Somers, director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University, says that despite the thin evidence in support of these experimental programs, the BC government has aggressively expanded them—and retaliated against dissenting researchers.

Somers also, controversially, raises questions about doctors and former health officials who appear to have gravitated toward businesses involved in these programs. He notes that these connections warrant closer scrutiny to ensure public policies remain free from undue industry influence.

Safer supply programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free addictive drugs—typically 8-milligram tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin—to dissuade addicts from accessing riskier street substances. Yet, a growing number of doctors say these programs are deeply misguided—and widely defrauded.

Ultimately, Somers argues, safer supply is exacerbating the country’s addiction crisis.

Somers opposed safer supply at its inception and openly criticized its nationwide expansion in 2020. He believes these programs perpetuate drug use and societal disconnection and fail to encourage users to make the mental and social changes needed to beat addiction. Worse yet, the safer supply movement seems rife with double standards that devalue the lives of poorer drug users. While working professionals are provided generous supports that prioritize recovery, disadvantaged Canadians are given “ineffective yet profitable” interventions, such as safer supply, that “convey no expectation that stopping substance use or overcoming addiction is a desirable or important goal.”

To better understand addiction, Somers created the Inter-Ministry Evaluation Database (IMED) in 2004, which, for the first time in BC’s history, connected disparate information—i.e. hospitalizations, incarceration rates—about vulnerable populations.

Throughout its existence, health experts used IMED’s data to create dozens of research projects and papers. It allowed Somers to conduct a multi-million-dollar randomized control trial (the “Vancouver at Home” study) that showed that scattering vulnerable people into regular apartments throughout the city, rather than warehousing them in a few buildings, leads to better outcomes at no additional cost.

In early 2021, Somers presented recommendations drawn from his analysis of the IMED to several leading officials in the B.C. government. He says that these officials gave a frosty reception to his ideas, which prioritized employment, rehabilitation, and social integration over easy access to drugs. Shortly afterwards, the government ordered him to immediately and permanently delete the IMED’s ministerial data.

Somers describes the order as a “devastating act of retaliation” and says that losing access to the IMED effectively ended his career as a researcher. “My lab can no longer do the research we were doing,” he noted, adding that public funding now goes exclusively toward projects sympathetic to safer supply. The B.C. government has since denied that its order was politically motivated.

In early 2022, the government of Alberta commissioned a team of researchers, led by Somers, to investigate the evidence base behind safer supply. They found that there was no empirical proof that the experiment works, and that harm reduction researchers often advocated for safer supply within their studies even if their data did not support such recommendations.

Somers says that, after these findings were published, his team was subjected to a smear campaign that was partially organized by the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU), a powerful pro-safer supply research organization with close ties to the B.C. government. The BCCSU has been instrumental in the expansion of safer supply and has produced studies and protocols in support of it, sometimes at the behest of the provincial government.

Somers is also concerned about the connections between some of safer supply’s key proponents and for-profit drug companies.

He notes that the BCCSU’s founding executive director, Dr. Evan Wood, became Chief Medical Officer at Numinus Wellness, a publicly traded psychedelic company, in 2020. Similarly, Dr. Perry Kendall, who also served as a BCCSU executive director, went on to found Fair Price Pharma, a now-defunct for-profit company that specializes in providing pharmaceutical heroin to high-risk drug users, the following year.

While these connections are not necessarily unethical, they do raise important questions about whether there is enough industry regulation to minimize potential conflicts of interest, whether they be real or perceived.

The BCCSU was also recently criticized in an editorial by Canadian Affairs, which noted that the organization had received funding from companies such as Shoppers Drug Mart and Tilray (a cannabis company). The editorial argued that influential addiction research organizations should not receive drug industry funding and reported that Alberta founded its own counterpart to the BCCSU in August, known as the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, which is legally prohibited from accepting such sponsorships.

Already, private interests are betting on the likely expansion of safer supply programs. For instance, Safe Supply Streaming Co., a publicly traded venture capital firm, has advertised to potential investors that B.C.’s safer supply system could create a multi-billion-dollar annual market.

Somers believes that Canada needs more transparency regarding how for-profit companies may be directly or indirectly influencing policy makers: “We need to know exactly, to the dollar, how much of [harm reduction researchers’] operating budget is flowing from industry sources.”

Editor’s note: This story is published in syndication with Break The Needle and Western Standard.

The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dr. Julian M. Somers is director of the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University. He was Director of the UBC Psychology Clinic, and past president of the BC Psychological Association. Liam Hunt is a contributing author to the Centre For Responsible Drug Policy in partnership with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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