Experts concerned with safe supply review from province

A review looking at safe supply, informing Alberta’s safe supply committee, has a group of over national 50 experts concerned with it’s content and conclusions. As Taylor Braat report, recommendations from the report, are expected in June, which could play into future policy.

A report on safe supply, which was commissioned by the UCP has been released. But a group of 58 experts says its review is not only ideologically biased but also doesn’t stand up factually.

Bernie Pauly is one of 58 experts who signed this open letter to the UCP-chosen safe supply committee about the review, which ultimately found no benefits in adding safe supply to Alberta’s opioid crisis strategy.

“It’s of critically low quality. There are some methodologies what we call in research some methodological problems,” said Pauly, a Scientist at the Canadian Institute for substance use research.

“When you have a study that doesn’t meet the accepted standards for a rapid review, and when there actually is some emerging evidence, and you come to conclusions that it’s going to cause harm, that’s actually dangerous.”


Related Article: Alberta mobile drug checking service to be piloted in Calgary


There were a record 1,758 opioid-related deaths last year in Alberta and on average, 20 Canadians die every day.

“We have people dying every day of overdoses, if people are able to access a prescription and if it’s the right one for them and they have the right resources it can actually reduce overdoses. So we need to build on that evidence,” said Pauly.


Related Article: Alberta’s supervised consumption sites saved lives and money, new research suggests


Angie Staines, founder 4b Harm Reduction Society in Edmonton, says, “that anticipatory grief is just always with you.”

Staines says her son Brandon has been using substances for 10 years, like so many others with a family member living this way, every day is a struggle.

“It affects every aspect. It’s the first thing you think of when you wake up, the last before you fall asleep. I love my son, substance user or not, if he had a safe supply and needed it for the rest of his life and that meant he could be alive, I would support it 500 per cent,” she explained.


Related Article: Calgary Beltline program offers resources to city’s vulnerable


CityNews reached out to the review’s author, Dr. Julian Somers, a professor with Simon Fraser University.

He said in a statement, “I believe the letter’s authors are upset with our conclusions rather than our methods. We advocate for a sea change in Canadian addiction practices away from a reliance on medications and toward evidence-based interventions that address root causes of addiction.”

Pauly added, “it takes away from progress and research because you’re having to address misinformation.”

Advocates and the letter’s signatories are highly concerned given the immediacy of the issue.

“Dead people don’t recover. People are dying from a poisoned supply. Safe supply is life and will save people’s lives,” added Staines.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today