±«Óătv the authors: is a Frontline Harm Reduction Worker & Health Promotion Research Assistant at ±«Óătv University. is an Associate Professor in the Schulich School of Law at ±«Óătv University. is Resident Physician in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University.
The opioid overdose crisis has .
One flashpoint of this crisis is Canada’s correctional facilities. among incarcerated people. Post-release, their prospects are even worse: in the two weeks after release, a prisoner’s risk of overdose is than in the general population. is a prisoner released in the past year.
Despite this, our prisons and jails often delay or deny access to evidence-based treatments for opioid use disorder and fail to ensure appropriate supports on release.
Opioid agonist therapy
Governments have brought and . Canada’s federal government is .
But our divergent experiences as a physician, a legal academic and a formerly incarcerated harm reduction activist have taught us that much of the responsibility lies with government itself — specifically, its failure to provide prisoners with timely access to opioid agonist therapy (OAT) and ensure post-release continuity of treatment.
People incarcerated in Canada’s federal prisons and provincial-territorial jails are highly likely to have experienced , poverty and the corrosive effects of and . They are highly likely to struggle with and . Incarcerated people, like many on the outside, use drugs as a form of coping.
OAT provides a medication (usually buprenorphine/naloxone or methadone) to prevent drug cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It is the and the standard of community-based care across Canada. , , improves a host of social and psychological outcomes and is associated with a decreased risk of and .
Legal standards for health care
and law obliges prisons to provide incarcerated people with health care at community standards. But , and all tell a similar story: too often, people are not provided addictions treatment on admission, whether or not they were being treated in the community. This means they go into acute withdrawal and are at increased risk of use, relapse and overdose.
The result? Missed opportunities to provide care to people who desperately need it, and deaths with little oversight or accountability. While we pursue progressive solutions like and , we must urgently make OAT available to everyone incarcerated who would benefit.
In Nova Scotia, the provincial health authority is responsible for delivering health care in the province’s jails, rather than Correctional Services, as is common in other provinces. Nova Scotia’s jails have a blanket policy of. Those who are not on therapy suffer through withdrawal or find ways to keep using illicitly inside. This is a clear violation of the government’s legal obligation to provide equivalent health care in detention.
Provinces like Ontario, which have celebrated Nova Scotia’s wisdom in making correctional health care the responsibility of the Department of Health and Wellness instead of corrections, should take note: simply shifting responsibility is not enough to ensure sound policy.
Feeding a crisis by limiting OAT
As people who have lived or worked in prisons and with people who have been incarcerated, we have seen first-hand how limiting OAT in prison feeds the opioid crisis inside. It increases the demand for illicit drugs to be smuggled in or diverted.
In some institutions, those receiving OAT are subjected to a . Others who want the medication to prevent their own withdrawal symptoms target prisoners receiving OAT. People soon start diverting their medication, for instance by vomiting it up and straining it through a sock for someone else to use. If someone says no to a demand to divert their OAT, they may be subject to violence.
, placing them at high risk of overdose. If treatment were not so intensely restricted, these adverse events could be reduced or eliminated.
There are a few glimmers of hope. Rhode Island implemented a statewide correctional OAT program and saw a . In 2016, people incarcerated in British Columbia launched a ; while that lawsuit settled, it contributed to increased access to the treatment. Access expanded further when the B.C. Ministry of Health took over provincial correctional health services in 2017.
But elsewhere, or provincial jails continues to be denied or unreasonably delayed. This has led B.C.’s Prisoners’ Legal Services to launch a , focused on access to OAT.
Federal, provincial and territorial governments need to step up and tackle the opioid epidemic at its flashpoint: our prisons and jails. Timely access to OAT for every incarcerated person who could benefit is required to turn the tide of death and ill health. Until we make these changes, Canada’s most vulnerable will continue to endure extraordinary suffering at the hands of our government and the body count will continue to rise.
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