Best of 2023: Canada’s great addictive hard-drug giveaway experiment somehow goes awry

Over the holidays, we’re looking back at some of the best episodes of 2023, a year where serious questions were raised about whether Canada’s “safe supply” approach to drug addiction was making things worse. A long-time proponent of harm reduction, Dr. Sharon Koivu, an urban doctor in London, Ont., discusses with host Brian Lilley how she has watched with alarm as Canada’s drug policy has shifted from safe, supervised consumption, to pumping quantities of extremely addictive opioids onto the streets, where they’re often sold cheaply for cash, or harder drugs. And she discusses how she’s seen first-hand how the diversion of inexpensive “safe supply” opioids is creating new addicts, and overdoses — including, horrifyingly, among schoolkids. (Recorded May 23, 2023)

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