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The other public health crisis killing Canadians

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4 years ago

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Opioid deaths have been rising again in the shadow of the pandemic, notably in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where overdose casualties have reached historic highs. Is enough being done to end this second public health crisis?

Every month or so, Garth Mullins has breakfast with his best friend. They go to the same place – an aging diner in downtown Vancouver with chipped wooden booths and neon signs. They always end up there around 1pm, talking through bites of bacon, eggs and white toast.

“And I always think, ‘Is this the last time I’m going to get bacon eggs with him?'” Mullins said.

Mullins was an injection heroin user for more than a decade, before moving to methadone. He is now a journalist and advocate for drug users and harm reduction policies in his home of Vancouver – at the centre of the overdose crisis in the province of British Columbia [BC].

When the coronavirus hit the province in March, one public health crisis collided with another, and overdose deaths began to climb. Two months later they reached all-time highs: 174 deaths in May, then 177 in June, 175 in July. So far this year, 909 people have died of an overdose in BC.

Deaths from illicit drugs continue to eclipse deaths from homicides, suicides, car crashes and Covid-19, combined.

It’s led to Canada’s chief public health official – and the face of the country’s coronavirus response – to warn of this second health emergency.

“Canadians should be seized with this particular crisis,” said Dr Theresa Tam last month. It is “escalating as we speak”.

The record-breaking figures reversed a period of relative stability in the province’s battle with opioid abuse.

In 2019, three years after the province declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, the number of drug deaths fell by more than a third from the year before – an encouraging trend that continued into the early months of 2020. Then the coronavirus hit.

Experts say the necessary response to the pandemic laid the foundation for a spike in overdose deaths.

First, there is the sheer toxicity of the drugs on the street, said Dr Jane Buxton, the medical lead for harm reduction at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.

Canada’s border closure has disrupted the country’s typical illicit drug supply chain, Dr Buxton said, leaving drugs more vulnerable to contamination as local dealers cut them with toxic additives to increase supply and lower costs.

A second factor is the clash in guidance between the two health emergencies.

Safety amid Covid-19 means social distancing and prolonged periods of isolation. Harm reduction for drug users means never using alone – and social distancing requirements have compelled some supervised consumption sites in Canada – where no overdose deaths have ever been recorded – to reduce capacity or shutter altogether.

And experts say some of the common side effects of the Covid-19 pandemic – anxiety, isolation and uncertainty – may drive people to use.

Mullins said Canada didn’t have an effective plan to address the opioid crisis to begin with, a shortfall that has been compounded by Covid.

“Everything is so precarious that if any one thing goes wrong, the statistics will jump up.”

These same factors are at play in the US. In August, the American Medical Association reported increases in opioid-related deaths in more than 40 states.

In Canada, the crisis is most pronounced in BC. A few years ago, Mullins said, he tried to tally the number of people he had lost to an overdose. When he got to 50 he stopped counting.

“It’s a terrible, morbid exercise,” he said. Lately, the deaths feel like a “constant stream”.

Last month, Mullins and other advocates in Vancouver gathered for a “mass memorial” and and eulogies for some of those who have died in recent months.

“It’s been a crisis for so long I feel like it’s rewritten a part of my personality. You just expect this kind of loss,” he said.

Advocates say the response to the coronavirus outbreak and the overdose crisis has exposed a gulf between the respective public and political attitudes.

Canada’s “bold and urgent” response to Covid-19 has not been matched by that to the overdose crisis, said Leslie Mcbain, who lost her 25-year-old son Jordan in 2014 to a drug overdose after he was prescribed opioids for a back injury.

“It’s the absolute worst thing that could happen to a family,” she said. “You don’t go through it, you carry it. We carry it forever.”

In the wake of Jordan’s death, Mcbain co-founded Moms Stop the Harm, a support group for families affected by substance use.

In August, both Mcbain and Mullins quit a provincial overdose response committee over what she described as governmental inaction.

“Nothing was happening,” she said, just as “everything” was being done to protect the province from Covid-19.

“We realised we were at the kids’ table,” she said.

In July, BC Premier John Horgan apologised for remarks suggesting that, while Covid-19 “affects anyone at any time”, the opioid crisis involves those who made an initial “choice” to use drugs.

Critics say the premier’s comments signal why the overdose crisis has not received the type of muscular response summoned for the coronavirus – that those dying of an overdose were “morally culpable”.

“The wrong people are dying,” Mullins said.

Among those struggling with addiction and those in the harm reduction community, the disparity seemed clear, according to Dr Buxton.

“There’s a lot of discontent around how much time, energy and money is being spent on Covid,” Dr Buxton said.

“There’s also that feeling of despondency: ‘We’ve been telling people this is an issue and nobody’s been listening and then it’s gotten worse. So what’s being done about it?'”

Amid mounting deaths, authorities have suggested two principal solutions: decriminalising the possession of illicit substances and providing a safe supply of prescribed alternatives – pharmaceutical-grade medication as a substitutes to illegal drugs like heroin.

Both steps have been sought by advocates for decades.

In recent weeks, BC provincial health officer Dr Bonnie Henry, Premier Horgan, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and health officers in Toronto and Montreal have all called on the federal government to decriminalise possession.

Dr Henry has joined BC’s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe and Guy Felicella, a harm reduction campaigner and advisor with the BC Centre on Substance Abuse in advocating for prescribed alternatives.

“Access to a safer supply remains the number one, most urgently needed intervention to stop overdoses and stop people from dying,” Felicella told reporters.

Early in the pandemic, the BC government announced new guidelines to allow more people – those at risk of Covid-19 infection, those with a history of ongoing substance abuse and those at high risk of withdrawal or overdose – to access prescription alternatives.

Nearly 2,000 people in the province can now use prescribed opioids.

But this figure is a “drop in the bucket” for a province with an estimated 55,000 to 100,000 illicit drug users, said Leslie Mcbain.

And much of the legal control of drugs in Canada rests with the federal government.

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“Even when we have a supervised consumption site [in BC] we have to get an exemption,” Dr Buxton said. “It’s not as easy just to go in and say, ‘OK we’re going to change this in BC.’ It all comes under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which is the federal piece.”

Asked last month about the surge in overdose deaths, Canada’s Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the Liberal-run government had been “aggressively” providing support to communities affected by opioid abuse since the party came to power in 2015.

“I don’t believe there is any silver bullet,” she said, for “ending problematic substance use, or dealing with the crisis at hand – it’s really a suite of tools that’s needed.”

In July, Hajdu’s department announced C$2m ($1.5m; £1.15m) in funding for a safe supply pilot project in BC’s Cowichan Valley. Inside this roughly 84,000-person region, the program is reserved for those who have not responded to other treatments for opioid use disorder – about 25 people so far.

And the Canadian government is not currently considering the decriminalisation or legalisation of illegal drugs, said Health Canada spokesman Geoffroy Legault-Thivierge in an email.

For many advocates, including Garth Mullins, until both measures are mandated by the federal government, it won’t be enough.

Unlike the virus outbreak, the spike in drug deaths in British Columbia was “entirely predictable”, according to Mullins. Covid-19 was “a force of nature”, he said. Canada’s overdose crisis was “a force of policy”.

Source:- BBC News

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My Boy Prince to race against older horses in $1-million Woodbine Mile

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26 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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TORONTO – He’s firmly among Canada’s top three-year-olds but My Boy Prince faces a stiff test Saturday at Woodbine Racetrack.

The ’24 King’s Plate runner-up will be part of a global field in the $1-million Woodbine Mile turf event. Not only will it be My Boy Prince’s first race against older competition but among the seven other starters will be such horses as Naval Power (Great Britain), Big Rock (France) and Filo Di Arianna (Brazil).

My Boy Prince will race for the first time since finishing second to filly Caitlinhergrtness in the Plate on Aug. 23.

“It’s his first try against older horses and it’s hard to say where he fits in,” said trainer Mark Casse. “This time of year running a three-year-old against older horses, it’s like running a teenager against college athletes.

“We’re doing it because we believe a mile on the turf is his preferred surface … we wanted to give him a shot at this. (American owner Gary Barber) is someone who likes to think outside the box and take calculated risks so we’re going to see where he fits in.”

Casse, 16 times Canada’s top trainer, is a Hall of Famer both here and in the U.S. He’s also a two-time Woodbine Mile winner with filly Tepin (2016) and World Approval (2017).

Sahin Civaci will again ride My Boy Prince, Canada’s top two-year-old male who has six wins and 10 money finishes (6-3-1) in 11 career starts. The horse will be one of three Casse trainees in the race with Filo Di Arianna (ridden by Sovereign Award winner Kazushi Kimura) and Win for the Money (veteran Woodbine jockey Patrick Husbands aboard).

Naval Power, a four-year-old, has finished in the money in eight of nine starts (six wins, twice second) and will race in Canada for the first time. He comes to Woodbine with second-place finishes in two Grade 1 turf races.

Big Rock, another four-year-old, makes his North American debut Saturday. The horse has five wins and five second-place finishes in 14 starts but has struggled in ’24, finishing sixth, 10th and fifth in three races.

Filo Di Arianna is a four-time graded stakes winner with nine victories, three seconds and a third from 17 starts. It was Canada’s ’22 top male sprinter and champion male turf horse.

Other starters include Playmea Tune, Niagara Skyline and Secret Reserve.

Playmea Tune, a four-year-old, is trained by Josie Carrol. The gelding has made three starts, winning twice and finishing second in the Grade 3 Bold Venture on Aug. 23.

Woodbine-based Niagara Skyline is a six-year-old with 13 money finishes (six wins, five seconds, twice third) in 24-lifetime starts. The John Charlambous trainee has reached the podium (1-1-1) in all three races this year.

Secret Reserve, also a six-year-old, has finished in the money in 15-of-26 starts (six wins, one second, eight thirds). The horse, at 44-1, was third in the Grade 2 King Edward Stakes over a mile on the E.P. Taylor turf course.

The Mile highlights a stellar card featuring six graded stakes races. Also on tap are the $750,000 E.P. Taylor Stakes (fillies and mares), $500,000 bet365 Summer Stakes (two-year-olds) and $500,000 Johnnie Walker Natalma Stakes (two-year-old fillies), all Grade 1 turf events.

The Mile, Natalma and Summer winners earn automatic entries into the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar in November.

Casse has won all four races, earning his first E.P. Taylor title last year with filly Fev Rover, Canada’s horse of the year and champion female turf horse. Fev Rover will defend her title Saturday against a field that includes Moira, the ’22 King’s Plate winner and Canada’s horse of the year trained by Woodbine’s Kevin Attard.

“It (E.P. Taylor) was definitely on my bucket list because it had eluded us,” Casse said. “But I honestly hadn’t realized I’d won all four of them, hadn’t really thought about it.”

Casse will have horses in all four turf races Saturday. Arguably the most intriguing matchup will be between Moira and Fev Rover, who ran 1-2, respectively, in a photo finish Aug. 11 in the Grade 2 Beverly D. Stakes, a 1 3/16-mile turf race, at Virginia’s Colonial Downs.

“What’s funny is the two of them went all the way to Virginia and she beat us by a nose,” Casse said. “We could’ve done that at Woodbine.

“There’s two of the best fillies in the world both from Toronto and they’re going to be competing Saturday.”

Some question having so many solid races on a single card but Casse likes the strategy.

“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “On Saturday, the main focus on horse racing in the world will be on Woodbine and that’s because it’s such a great card.

“It’s an international day, there’s horses coming from everywhere and we’re going to do our best to represent Canada.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.



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Former world No. 1 Sharapova wins fan vote for International Tennis Hall of Fame

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33 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.

The organization released the voting results Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.

The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.

“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”

Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.

Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.

To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.

The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.

The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.

___

AP tennis:

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Roots sees room for expansion in activewear, reports $5.2M Q2 loss and sales drop

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39 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.

The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.

“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.

The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.

But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.

Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.

“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.

“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”

Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.

The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.

In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.

Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.

The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.

The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.

Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.

Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.

It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.

Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.

Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:ROOT)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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