Advocates hope rookie minister acts quickly to tackle a wave of overdose deaths
prepared for the previous minister last year suggests another 55 municipalities have expressed interest in decriminalization.
"We need someone who understands that it's not going to be just one magic silver bullet," she said. "It's a whole suite of things that need to happen and those things need to happen quickly."Advocates have been pushing for an expansion of harm-reduction projects such as safe supply and supervised consumption sites.
Safe supply programs are meant to offer people who use drugs an alternative to toxic street products which can be laced with deadly opioids such as fentanyl. Of the more than 7,300 overdose deaths that happened last year, 81 per cent involved fentanyl, according to data from the Public Health Agency of Canada.Guy Felicella, a peer clinical adviser for the BCCSU, says he would like to see new safe supply programs that are less bureaucratic and allow people access without a prescription.
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