I have been looking for reasonable, facts, figures and coverage of Opioids in Canada for a long time. I have found some
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/01...p-j23.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/01...p-j23.html
Quote:By Janet Browning
23 January 2018
The Public Health Agency of Canada announced last month that an estimated 4,000 Canadians lost their lives due to drug overdoses in 2017—more than ten per day. Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer of Canada, said this estimate is probably lower than the true figure because Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba had yet to report all of their opioid-related overdose deaths for even the first half of the year.
Three-quarters of overdose deaths in 2017 were males, with the highest proportion, 28 percent, clustered among those aged 30 to 39.
In 2016, there were 2,861 overdose deaths, with the Yukon and British Columbia having the highest death rates, at more than 15 per 100,000 people. This means that even based on preliminary statistics for 2017, opioid deaths increased by more than 30 percent last year.
The dramatic increase in deaths is primarily the result of the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid estimated to be a hundred times stronger than heroin. Even a tiny amount of the substance can be enough to trigger a fatal overdose.
Successive federal and provincial governments bear political responsibility for creating the terrible social conditions that have exacerbated the drug crisis and of chronically underfunding the healthcare system, which has proven utterly incapable of coping with the opioid emergency. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have imposed a miserly 3-4 percent increase in provincial health transfers, which amounts to a substantial cut in health spending when the rising cost of healthcare and population growth and aging are taken into account.