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Authors: Stephanie Lake, PhD student in Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia and M-J Milloy, Research Scientist, BC Centre on Substance Use and Assistant Professor in the Division of AIDS, UBC Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia

It’s hard to go a day in Canada without hearing about at least one of two types of drugs — but for vastly different reasons. One class of drug — opioids — kills four people a day in British Columbia. The other — cannabis — will be legal for adult purchase and consumption by this time next year.

The opioid overdose epidemic is Canada’s gravest public health crisis since the emergence of HIV in the 1980s. With its roots in the over-prescription of high-potency painkillers, sparked by the contamination of the illicit drug supply with fentanyl and related drugs, the crisis has reached across demographic divides. Experts agree on the need for creative responses based in scientific evidence.