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By Jordan Westfall

In Ontario, someone dies of an opioid overdose every 14 hours. Most of them are related to prescription opioids, which are often prescribed for chronic pain.

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With a reported 50 per cent of chronic pain patients facing wait times of six months or more to see a qualified specialist, prescribed opioids fill a health care gap.

Maybe this gap is the issue, and not the prescription that doctors are using to fill it.

As many of the thousands of men and women who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector could tell you, chronic pain doesn’t disappear when your job does.

We like to think of the people who use and sell drugs as criminals, not laid off assembly line workers with chronic pain conditions and reduced prospects.

The U of T’s Mowat Centre estimates that Ontario has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs since the year 2000. Many of these workers face an uphill battle transitioning to new industries.