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With the alarming rate of opioid deaths and the pressure to find solutions, anything that might escalate the opioid crisis must be on our radar. With FDA approval, is Canada far behind?

The pills’ manufacturer, AcelRx, states that they may seek approval of the sufentanil pill via a Canadian partner. Whether Health Canada would approve this medication is unknown, but one can only hope that they take a pass. This past summer the Government of Canada reached out to more than 100 drug manufacturers asking them to cease their marketing of opioids and indicated that new marketing regulations might be coming out early in the new year.

All of this to say, that we seem to be going two steps forward and three steps back, begging the question: what is it going to take to fix the opioid problem?

On a positive note, a Health Canada authorized head to head clinical trial investigating cannabis versus fentanyl is underway with study participants currently being enrolled by Santé Cannabis, a Canadian contract research organization. Investigators are anxious to gather the scientific evidence to show that cannabis may help decrease the use of the highly addictive fentanyl when treating severe pain. The clinical trial is the first one of its kind in the world to study a smokable form of cannabis, which, if proven safe and effective, would be indicated for breakthrough pain.

The opioid crisis last year claimed nearly 4,000 Canadians, mostly young men between the ages of 30 and 39. We have a crisis in this country and introducing another opioid is not the solution.

Guy Chamberland is CEO and chief scientific officer of Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc., a global leader in cannabinoid-based drug discovery and development.

Letters to the editor should be sent to sunletters@vancouversun.com. The editorial pages editor is Gordon Clark, who can be reached at gclark@postmedia.com.

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