Medication abuse strategy calls for more surveillance of prescriptions

Angela Mulholland, CTVNews.ca Published Wednesday, March 27, 2013 7:34AM EDT Last Updated Wednesday, March 27, 2013 11:00PM EDT

With Canada battling a growing crisis of prescription drug abuse, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse has released a 10-year plan aimed at curbing the misuse while also ensuring that those who legitimately need the medications can still access them.

The plan is entitled First Do No Harm: Responding to Canada's Prescription Drug Crisis, and is aimed at highlighting whats needed to address the problem of prescription drug abuse.

The plan calls for the creation of a countrywide surveillance system that would track how powerful medications are being prescribed.

As well, it urges new legislation to allow such surveillance to take place, as well as to prevent doctors and pharmacists from prescribing painkillers indiscriminately.

The plan also calls for changes to ensure that prescription medication addicts can get the help they need.

The strategy takes aim at the three most troublesome classes of prescription medications: painkillers in the opioids family, such as oxycodone, hydromorphone and fentanyl; stimulants such as amphetamines; and sedatives, such as clonazepam and pentobarbital.

Dr. Andrea Fulran, of the University Health Network, said the strategy is a step towards eliminating overdose deaths.

My vision, and I think the vision of everybody thats involved in this national strategy, is to have zero overdose deaths, she said. Thats unacceptable that people are dying because of an overdose of a prescription drug that is supposed to help them.

The use of prescription medications has skyrocketed in the last decade in this country. Canadians are now the second largest per capita consumers of prescription opioids, right behind the United States. And their rate of use in Canada is increasing faster than south of the border.

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Medication abuse strategy calls for more surveillance of prescriptions