Surrey needs to cool the rhetoric and find a recovery-focused approach to its growing drug problem, addictions experts say.
The city is home to a growing level of drug abuse, mounting overdoses and frequent deaths, causing many to call for safe injection sites.
Last year, Surrey Fire Services responded to an average of 4.5 overdoses per day. That has climbed to about seven per day this year.
According to the B.C. Coroner’s Office, Surrey had 378 overdose fatalities in the last 10 years, with 71 of those occurring last year alone.
In the first six months of this year, there were 44 overdose fatalities in Surrey.
Since last year, there has been a huge spike in the amount of fentanyl mixed with street drugs.
Fentanyl is an often fatal opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
There has also been a emergence of a drug called W-18, of which very little is known. It is a painkiller (a suspected opioid) that is believed to be several times stronger than fentanyl.
Fraser Health is now saying communities need to be open to “safe consumption sites.”
The model many community members are looking at is Vancouver’s Insite – a safe injection site.
Insite, which opened in Vancouver 13 years ago, has been subject to more than 30 peer-reviewed studies, including those published in the New England Journal of Medicine in the U.S. and The Lancet, in Britain.
Critics say the studies have been widely criticized and that The Lancet took heat among academics for publishing one of them.
Most agree, however, the outcomes look promising.
There have been 263,713 visits to Insite by 6,532 individuals.
Of those, there were 1,418 overdoses at Insite, none of which were fatal.
However, some experts in addiction say the Insite model is not the answer for Surrey, or any other community facing the growing problem of addiction.