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.
