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By what means will the individual be delivered from the chains of addiction if high-dose opioids are so readily available?

But this plan of “eventual recovery” is vague and undefined. By what means will the individual be delivered from the chains of addiction if high-dose opioids are so readily available?

According to B.C. addiction philosophy, opioids, if medically administered, can have a positive “stabilizing” effect on the active drug user because that eliminates the desperate struggle inherent in habitual drug use. For this reason, the province is actively expanding access to both heroin-assisted-treatment and the dispensing of morphine for dependent opioid users. The province has imported expensive pharmaceutical-grade heroin from Switzerland specifically for this treatment. The theory is that the drug user who has a regular supply of safe opioids administered under the auspices of the medical system will be in a good position to begin their risk-free progression toward recovery.

But this plan lacks common sense.

Photo by Luke Hendry/Belleville Intelligencer/Postmedia

The notion is completely at odds with the lived experience of many former severely addicted opioid users who were able to free themselves from chemical dependence only after a long and bitter battle.

Herein lies the crux of the problem with the B.C model: it enables drug use seemingly without end or consequence. The system places all its resources into attempting to “stabilize” an intrinsically unstable and harmful activity. The B.C. notion of recovery is so compromised that one can scarcely differentiate addiction treatment from active drug use.