feature story
BETWEEN PAIN AND PLEASURE The pharmaceutical industry grapples with the Canadian opioid crisis By hermione wilson
he opioid crisis has dominated the news for the past few years, but it seems to have ramped up in the last few months and every day brings more reports of fatal overdoses. The Public Health Agency of Canada reported an estimated 2,458 opioid-related deaths in 2016 alone, with western Canada experiencing the highest rates. The main culprit is fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic opioid painkiller, which news sources say started appearing on Canadian streets in 2013. As little as 2 mg of powdered fentanyl (comparable to two grains of salt) can be deadly to a healthy adult. In the midst of this crisis, opioids have become synonymous with death, but this class of drugs has another use; for decades they’ve been an essential part of pain management for patients. For as long as opioids have been in use, however, they have been dogged by concerns that they are being overprescribed and that their addictive nature will enslave vulnerable patients in a cycle of drug abuse. In a recent article, The Globe and Mail quoted figures obtained from IMS Brogan which showed that, in 2015, doctors wrote “one opioid prescription for every two Canadians, making Canada the world’s second-biggest per-capita user of opioids, behind the United States.”
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