This article originally appeared in the Bureau. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Liam Hunt, June 10, 2024
It’s been a tough year for some auto companies. Sales of electric vehicles continue to grow, especially in China and India, though more slowly than expected in North America and Europe. Demand is even falling in Italy, Japan and Germany. Meanwhile, cheaper Chinese EVs are grabbing market share in Europe and Asia. While improving recently, global vehicle sales remain sluggish at 90 million units in 2023, four million short of 2018.
While proponents of safe supply contend that providing drug users with free tablets of hydromorphone – a pharmaceutical opioid roughly as potent as heroin – can mitigate harms, Dr. Regenstreif expresses grave concern that these programs may inadvertently perpetuate new addictions and entrench existing opioid use.
She sees ominous similarities between safer supply and the OxyContin crisis of the late 1990s, when the widespread overprescribing of opioids flooded North American communities with narcotics, sparking an addiction crisis that continues to this day. Having witnessed the devastating consequences of OxyContin in the late 1990s, she believes that low-quality and misleading research is once again encouraging dangerous overprescribing practices.
Flashbacks to the OxyContin Crisis
Soon after Dr. Regenstreif received her medical license in Canada, harm reduction became the primary framework guiding her practice in inner-city Vancouver. This period coincided with Health Canada’s 1996 regulatory approval of oxycodone (brand name: OxyContin) based on trials, sponsored by Purdue Pharma, that failed to assess the serious risks of misuse or addiction. Dr. Regenstreif subsequently witnessed highly addictive prescription opioids flood North American streets while Purdue and its distributors reaped record profits at the expense of vulnerable communities. “That was really peaking in the late 90s as I was coming into practice,” she recounted during an extended interview with Break The Needle. “I was being pressured to prescribe it as well.
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