Cranbrook Daily Townsman, November 13, 2012

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TUESDAY

Weddings, Maternity, Newborn, Families and everything in between.

< Cocaine found in motel bust

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Machete, pepper spray also seized by RCMP | Page 3

Veterans interred >

Legion completes columbarium | Page 5

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Accidental drug overdoses alarmingly high People are dying of prescription opioid overdoses at the same rate they are dying in drunk driving accidents in southeast B.C. SALLY MACDONALD Townsman Staff

People in southeast B.C. are dying from prescription opioid overdoses at the same rate that they are dying in drunk driving accidents. That’s the finding Interior Health Authority’s medical health

officers brought forward after a research project in conjunction with the B.C. Coroner’s Service. Across southeast B.C., 21 people are dying each year from overdoses of prescribed opioids such as morphine, codeine, oxycodone, hydromorphone and fentanyl. That is a rate of 2.7 people for

every 100,000 people in the Interior Health Authority (IHA). According to the B.C. Coroner’s Service, between two and three people out of every 100,000 die each year in motor vehicle accidents involving alcohol. “People need to know that this is actually a regular occurrence,” said

IHA medical health officer Dr. Trevor Corneil, who authored an October 9, 2012 alert to physicians and pharmacists. What’s more, Dr Corneil said, the rate is even higher if you consider the number of people in IHA who are on opioids. He said of the 25,000 people in the region who

have been prescribed opioids to deal with chronic pain, 22 die every year. Most – 86 per cent – overdose accidentally as opposed to suicide. “That’s huge,” said Dr. Corneil. “There are very few things that have that mortality rate.”

See OPIOID, Page 3

THE POLITICAL FRONT

Kootenay East key to NDP success, Dix says ANNALEE GR ANT Townsman Staff

Provincial NDP leader Adrian Dix toured the East Kootenay this past weekend with Kootenay East candidate Norma Blissett and MLA for Columbia River Revelstoke Norm Macdonald. Dix met with the Townsman on November 9 in Cranbrook. He discussed the issues facing the riding and the province, and he even put in his two cents about last week’s ballot initiative in Washington state that legalized marijuana. On marijuana: Dix was clear that he does not encourage drug use, but said the recent ballot initiative that legalized marijuana in Washington state will soon turn debate on this side of the border. “I do not recommend people smoke marijuana. I think that the way we regulate marijuana today is not the best thing but I am not an advocate of that,” he said. “I am not an advocate of drug use, and I think we have to say that clearly.” He predicts that in the 2015 federal election it will be a campaign issue, because regardless of how B.C. politicians and residents feel, the matter is for the Parliament of Canada. “The federal parliament has decided that marijuana is illegal under the criminal code – in fact the current government has increased penalties in the most recent crime bill for marijuana. So they’ve gone in the opposite direction to I think what most Canadians think is the right approach and now it appears most Americans think is the wrong approach.”

See DIX, Page 4

BARRY COULTER PHOTO

LAMENT FOR THE FALLEN: Piper Dan McKinnon performed The Lament at Cranbrook’s Remembrance Day ceremonies in Rotary Park on Sunday, Nov. 11. The usual large crowd turned out despite subzero temperatures, and the event took place under brilliant sunny skies. See more, Page 12.

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