Opioid vending machine opens in Vancouver
MySafe scheme for addicts aims to help reduce overdose deaths in Canadian city
The Guardian (UK)
Monday, February 17, 2020
Monday, February 17, 2020
A vending machine for powerful opioids has opened in Canada as part of a project to help fight the Canadian city’s overdose crisis. The MySafe project, which resembles a cash machine, gives addicts access to a prescribed amount of medical quality hydromorphone, a drug about twice as powerful as heroin. Dr Mark Tyndall, a professor of epidemiology at the University of British Columbia, came up with the project as part of an attempt to reduce the number of overdose deaths in the city, which reached 395 last year. “I think ethically we need to offer people a safer source,” he said. “So basically the idea is that instead of buying unknown fentanyl from an alley, we can get people pharmaceutical-grade drugs.”
tags:
