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Sooke resident Sandra Hughes says pressure on doctors to reduce prescription opioids for patients, or cut them off completely, has left her in constant pain, unable to work and forced to buy dangerous street drugs.

“Percocet, oxycodone, stuff I don’t know the name of, anything to ease the pain,” said Hughes, 51.

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“Later today, I kid you not, I will be making inquiries into buying heroin.”

Hughes said there are many others like her, risking their lives to buy illicit street drugs because they cannot cope with the effects of having pain medications rapidly reduced or cut off.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. released new guidelines for prescribing opioids in 2016 that more than cuts in half the daily recommended amount of medication. Years of overprescribing opioids has been cited as a contributing factor to the illicit-drug overdose crisis in the province. In 2016, at least 922 people died from illicit drug overdoses in B.C.