National

B.C. ends take-home safer supply of opioids to stop criminal diversion

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 19 Feb, 2025 02:17 PM

British Columbia's health minister has announced that the province is changing its safer-supply anti-addiction program to a witnessed model, in which users will be watched as they consume the drugs.

Josie Osborne says the "significant" change to end the take-home model will be difficult for some, but is designed to reduce the criminal diversion of prescribed alternatives to illicit street drugs.

Osborne says health care workers will watch the consumption of prescribed alternatives, including the opioid hydromorphone, with the change effective immediately.

She also provided an update on an investigation into "bad actors" among pharmacies that are allegedly contributing to diversion and paying illegal kickbacks to drug users and doctors.

Osborne says roughly 60 pharmacies are believed to be involved and "every single one of them" will be investigated.

The announcements come about two weeks after the release of a leaked Ministry of Health briefing for police that said a "significant portion" of opioids prescribed in B.C. were being diverted, and prescribed alternatives were being trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.

Prev Next

MORE National ARTICLES

Winter storm warning for Yukon

Environment Canada has issued a winter storm warning for Yukon's South Klondike Highway from Carcross to White Pass. The weather office says the area will see heavy snow with accumulation between 20 and 30 centimetres before conditions are expected to ease tomorrow morning.

Winter storm warning for Yukon

Former Calgary councillor accused of lying on travel expenses guilty of fraud

While serving as Calgary city councillor, Joe Magliocca claimed he was hosting and meeting with politicians across the country -- including a Quebec cabinet minister, Ontario's NDP leader and the mayor of Halifax. But they testified they had never met him.

Former Calgary councillor accused of lying on travel expenses guilty of fraud

Arya says he's out of Liberal leadership race, as Carney gets more caucus support

One of the seven Liberal leadership hopefuls says the party is not allowing him to run, as another high-profile cabinet minister endorsed Mark Carney on Sunday. Ontario member of Parliament Chandra Arya said the Liberal party informed him he's out of the running to be its next leader.

Arya says he's out of Liberal leadership race, as Carney gets more caucus support

Auschwitz survivors fear rising hate could bring on another Holocaust 80 years later

As she prepared to return to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Miriam Ziegler vividly recalled how it felt to be a little girl orphaned by the Nazis and left alone in a world ruined by war. Eighty years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, the 89-year-old Ziegler said Monday the rising tide of "hatred" around the world makes her fear that history might be ready to repeat itself.

Auschwitz survivors fear rising hate could bring on another Holocaust 80 years later

Canada's border security package welcome but comes late, Republican senator says

A prominent Republican senator says Canada’s recent investment in border security — announced in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threat — is tardy but welcome. James Risch, chair of the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee, says border security should be a Canadian policy priority and he wants to see Ottawa make sustained investments.

Canada's border security package welcome but comes late, Republican senator says

Early morning shooting in Newton

Police in Surrey say they're investigating an early-morning shooting in Newton that left a home damaged by gunfire. The Surrey Police Service says they got multiple calls about shots fired just after 3 a-m yesterday in the Newton area near the intersection of 142 Street and 72nd Ave.