Edmontonians join cross-country rallies urging governments to consult drug-users on fentanyl crisis
Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs wants safe injection sites and more treatment beds
Two weeks ago, Edmonton outreach worker Shanell Marie Twan had to tell another client ready to get off drugs that there was nowhere to go for help.
The current wait to get into a residential drug treatment program is as long as six weeks, Twan said.
"It's frustrating," she said. "These are people's lives."
It's been more than a decade since Twan weaned herself off cocaine and morphine. Her road to recovery began after her younger brother was murdered in Edmonton in 2005. She thought she owed it to him to make something more out of her life.
But the mother of four is still personally affected by the harm associated with drug use. Two of her relatives have died from overdoses, while others have contracted HIV.
"It's the only kind of health problem we can actually turn people away," said Twan, who is prescribed an opioid medication for chronic back pain. "We need to stop looking at it through a moral lens and look at it through a health lens."
Safe injection sites and faster access to treatment beds are among several demands being made by Twan and other members of the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs as they prepare to rally Tuesday in Edmonton and six other Canadians cities.
Their "life won't wait" campaign demands governments revise the approach to the deadly opioid and fentanyl crisis.
-
Improve opioid prescribing rules, training to curb fentanyl deaths
-
Alberta government under fire for response to record 343 fentanyl deaths
They argue that what's needed is meaningful input from those most impacted: drug users, as well as frontline workers and allies.
They also call for increased access to opioid substitution therapy, including prescription heroin, needle exchanges and drug treatment programs in prisons as well as after release, and the decriminalization of all drugs.
Earlier this month, the Alberta government announced its latest plan to tackle the crisis as new numbers showed that 343 Albertans had died from fentanyl overdoses in 2016. Experts noted the total number of opioid deaths is even higher.
The province is making opioid antidote kits available to first-responders and the general public without prescriptions, increasing access to opioid drug treatment, updating standards around prescribing opiates and striving to open Alberta's first safe injection site in Edmonton by the end of the year.
The federal government announced legislative changes late last year aimed at speeding up the process for opening safe injection sites.
A spokesperson noted there is an ongoing constitutional challenge regarding Correction Service Canada's policy not to distribute needles in prisons.
But Lori Halfper said other harm reduction measures have been implemented to help reduce the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C such as testing, education, addiction programs, bleach distribution to disinfect needles and voluntary opiate substitution therapy (OST).
"OST is offered in institutions and continues in the community when offenders are released," Halfper wrote in a statement.
Rally participants will meet at noon outside the Homeless Memorial Plaza, just north of City Hall in front of the CN Tower.