Canada - Why Alberta plans to offer prescription opioid injections

[S.J.B.]

Why Alberta plans to offer prescription opioid injections
Elizabeth Cameron
The Star Calgary
May 1st, 2018

CALGARY - If it was as simple as just quitting, most of the people Tanis Petry works with would have already done so.

Petry is part of a team that works to address their client's medical, social, mental health and addictions needs at Calgary's The Alex Community Health Centre's Complex Care Clinic (CCC).

Many of them are addicted to opioids, and in an effort to better serve these clients, the clinic in late 2017 began offering Suboxone treatment, an opioid agonist therapy meant to replace the substance someone has been using with another medication that prevents them from getting "dope sick," or experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

...

As part of its efforts to curb the deaths, the province recently accepted a recommendation from the Minister's Opioid Emergency Response Commission to fund the phased implementation of a supervised injectable opioid agonist therapy (siOAT) program in Edmonton and Calgary.

In plain language, Alberta is planning to prescribe hydromorphone in injectable form, rather than orally, which is currently available on the street or with a prescription under the brand name Dilaudid.

Read the full story here.

 

[Jabberwocky]

God bless Canada

 

[seep]

In plain language, Alberta is planning to prescribe hydromorphone in injectable form, rather than orally, which is currently available on the street or with a prescription under the brand name Dilaudid.

Half-life is too short for this type of thing. Heroin is a better choice.

 

[S.J.B.]

Half-life is too short for this type of thing. Heroin is a better choice.

That's a common belief, but a recent study specifically designed to compare heroin to hydromorphone for injectable maintenance treatment found them to be interchangeable. Even long-term heroin addicts can not tell the difference between pure hydromorphone and heroin:

In the hydromorphone group, 48 of 99 (48.5% ) participants thought that they were receiving diacetylmorphine or were unsure. In the diacetylmorphine group, 63 of 98 (64.3% ) participants thought that they were receiving hydromorphone or were unsure. The blinding index was 0.56 (P = 0.96; bootstrap 95% CI, 0.50-0.63), indicating successful masking, with a response pattern close to that expected by random guessing.

 

[seep]

What an interesting study. I wish I knew stats better.

Still, the longer half life of morphine would allow patients to only visit the clinic twice daily, with some methadone to tide them over while the clinic is closed for the night.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Meanwhile in the US. Melania trump and chris christie are handling the opioid problem...allegedly. The US is the 3rd world with pretty buildings