Health Canada to review prescription-only status of naloxone

Health Canada has announced it is reviewing the prescription-only status of naloxone, an antidote that can be used to treat heroin and other opioid drug overdoses. Naloxone counteracts the effects of an opioid overdose and restores breathing.

A number of medical associations have been asking the federal government to review the prescription-only status, including Doctors of BC. Last year, our Board approved a resolution brought forward by the Council on Health Promotion that states:

 “The Doctors of BC supports community-based programs that offer naloxone and other opioid overdose prevention services. The Doctors of BC also encourages education of health workers and opioid users about the use of naloxone in preventing overdose fatalities.”

Canada is the world’s second largest per capita consumer of prescription opioids, and the associated harms of these drugs have become a leading public health and safety concern.  Currently in BC it can only be prescribed by a medical professional – either a physician or nurse practitioner. We believe that there is greater potential for naloxone to save lives when it is administered in a more timely way, and believe the solution is to provide the drug to people who are most likely to need it, and to have trained community-based organizations distribute it appropriately.

Here in BC, the BC Centre for Disease Control launched a Take Home Naloxone (THN) program to make naloxone available to people using opioids, and to train those who use opioids – and their friends and family – to recognize and respond to an overdose situation. Doctors of BC wants programs like this to expand.

In 2012, the BC Medical Journal published an article looking at ways to increase access to naloxone in BC as a preventative method against overdoses resulting from both prescribed and illegal opioids. The article sought to “increase physician awareness about the safety, effectiveness, and evidence that increasing access to naloxone saves lives…”

To read the BCMJ article click here.

To read the Globe and Mail article on Health Canada’s review, click here.