Pharmacists urge government to expand addiction treatment

New Brunswick's pharmacists are urging the government to devote more resources to drug addiction treatment, as the province prepares to roll out a prescription monitoring program.

Paul Blanchard, executive director of the New Brunswick Pharmacists' Association, says pharmacists aren't sure where to refer people who will be identified through prescription monitoring as abusing their medication.

"In the absence of support programs, there's a high risk that people will look for other drugs to use," Blanchard said.

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That's what happened in New England, where prescription monitoring tightened the supply of addictive opiate painkillers on the street.

Many drug users migrated to heroin, a cheaper opiate that's more unpredictable than pills made in a lab, and fentanyl.

New Brunswick will soon roll out its long-awaited prescription monitoring program, something that has been promised by three different provincial governments.

When it's ready, pharmacists will have a better sense of which patients have been misusing addictive medication from doctors.

Blanchard has been lobbying for such a program for more than a decade, as the toll of opiate addiction mounted.

A CBC News analysis of drug overdose deaths in the Maritimes found that opiates - such as Dilaudid and Oxycontin - have been involved in more than 70 per cent of drug overdose deaths since 2008.

'Systemic plan' needed to help addicts

Blanchard has called for the program to give pharmacists more information about a patient's prescription history.

But he doesn't think it will solve the underlying addiction problem.

He's questioned what will happen once a pharmacist discovers a patient has been abusing his or her medication and refuses to fill it.

"At some point, there has to be a systemic plan in place to help address the addiction issues and to help provide services to these individuals," Blanchard said.

"Not everybody is all of a sudden going to be on the methadone program nor should they be."

A CBC News investigation has found that New Brunswick's addiction treatment system is confusing to navigate, with some people facing waits of weeks or even months to get help.

It comes as the province braces for the arrival of illicit fentanyl, which has killed hundreds of people in western Canada this year.

Blanchard questions whether there are enough programs in place to treat the people who will need help over the next few months.

"Government has to put the resources in place to deal with what's coming. It's not a likelihood or a possibility of something that might come. It should be something that we can foresee."

Issue on government's radar

Officials in New Brunswick have been working "behind the scenes" to deal with the issue of opiate addiction and prepare for illicit fentanyl, according to the province's acting chief medical officer of health.

Dr. Jennifer Russell said government is discussing how to help people who will be identified as misusing their prescription medication when the monitoring program is in place.

"If people are in that position, obviously communicating with their family doctor and accessing resources that are available right now, that's what we have to offer right now," she said.

"It's something we're discussing if there are changes that have to be made or any further. Again more discussions have to take place."

Others say it hasn't been effective and isn't doing what it was designed to do.

The program didn't flag a Bridgewater doctor who is accused of prescribing a patient 50,000 powerful painkillers between January 2014 and August 2015, allegedly selling the pills on the street.

Dr. Sarah Jones has pleaded not guilty to a series of charges related to an alleged drug-trafficking scheme.