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Andy Bhatti has lived experience with trauma and addiction and now he helps other people get clean. But he frequently has to transport people from Kelowna to Thailand so they can recover.

Bhatti survived sexual abuse as a child, spent more than a decade addicted to drugs and did eight years in jail. After 18 years clean, he offers interventions and addiction services to help people who have run out of options.

Bhatti recently took a person, who was taking two grams of fentanyl per day, from Kelowna to Thailand to get clean. Their family had already spent roughly $150,000 on six different rehab programs in B.C. 

“About 35 to 50 per cent of my clients go to Thailand to get off of opiates,” he said. “I said to the mom, ‘I told you a year ago to send your kid to Thailand. And you would have saved yourself $150,000.’”

A 90-day private inpatient rehab program in B.C. can cost up to $60,000, according to the Canada Drug Rehab Addiction Services Directory. Standard inpatient rehab in Thailand costs $27,000 for 90 days, according to the Thailand Rehab Guide.

He said getting clean in Thailand is easier than getting clean in Kelowna for several reasons. He said it’s almost impossible to find opiates, rehab centres are more affordable and Thai regulations allow for a more straightforward approach to providing opiate alternatives.

Safer Opioid Supply policy not necessarily the answer

According to the BC Centre on Substance Use, the Safer Opioid Supply policy in B.C. allows doctors to prescribe drugs, particularly opiates, to people in an effort to reduce overdose deaths from toxic drug supplies. It’s a harm reduction measure, it’s not intended to be used as a way for people to get off drugs entirely.

One of the Safer Supply options is Suboxone, which is a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, oral morphine and methadone.

Since quitting a high daily dose of opiates cold-turkey can be lethal, detox doctors will use the Safer Supply program to prescribe medications to get people off of street drugs. The health risks of detoxing from opiates are much higher without assistance from medications according to Vancouver Coastal Health.

Although the policy is meant to be a harm reduction measure, Bhatti said doctors will make people go on a Safer Supply drug to reduce health risks during detox which doesn’t help people actually get sober.

“I would rather be in jail than be hooked on safer supply,” he said. “Now you're physically addicted to Suboxone, and it's just as hard to come off of methadone. Now you get sick coming off of it. Your natural reaction, ‘I know how to get rid of this sickness. Opioids, I'll use just one time.’ Now you're back to being a full-blown drug addict.”

READ MORE: WE DO RECOVER: Kamloops mother leaves life of crime and drugs behind

Bhatti’s most recent client from Kelowna was on Safer Supply before he was flown to Thailand.

“He's like, ‘I don't want to be on anything. I had 10 years of recovery before. I want to go back to being clean.’ They're like, ‘nope, sorry, we can't take you off of it.’ So, he was forced to take Safer Supply. Then he freaked out, he's like overdosing, overdosing, overdosing while on Safer Supply,” Bhatti said.

If someone goes from two grams of fentanyl per day to no opiates at all, they could die. Bhatti said a typical effective dose of methadone for someone with a high tolerance for fentanyl is 150 mg, but the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia's guidelines tell doctors to start patients on 20 to 30 mg per day.

“Now, he's in a treatment centre with a Canadian counsellor. Thai addiction doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, and trauma therapists. The first thing they did was throw Safer Supply in the garbage. Gave him 150 mg of methadone. Boom, he was totally fine,” he said.

He said another flaw in Safer Supply is the fact that many addicts are dependent on a variety of substances. Bhatti said Safer Supply as it is in B.C. won’t help people get off fentanyl.

“It's not. You know why? Ninety per cent of drug addicts don't just use fentanyl. They also use cocaine. Now, if you test the fentanyl, half the time fentanyl tests positive for crystal meth anyways, or it's got cocaine in it,” he said.

He has seen people on Safer Supply continue to use street drugs because they aren’t getting a high enough dose, and it doesn’t address their other addictions. Bhatti said he took methadone years ago while trying to get sober.

“I think they should go back to giving the old-school methadone they had 15 years ago and write a script for 100 mg all at once,” he said. 

Getting clean is first step in long journey

Flaws in the Safer Supply regulations are one obstacle for recovery in the province, but he said it’s important to address the underlying trauma that drives people to substance abuse at the same time as the addiction itself.

“What is an opiate? It's an emotional painkiller,” he said. “That's why sexual abuse survivors and trauma victims have no problem staying on opiates because it numbs us out. We don't have to think about all the bad things that happened to us. You get clean, you think about it all.”

Bhatti said treatment centres that don't have the appropriate medical staff aren't effective for most people struggling with addiction.

“Have a treatment centre that has doctors inside, psychiatrists inside, psychologists inside, 24-hour nursing, and masters degree addiction therapists. So, now if someone's going to go into treatment, they're going to see the doctor and the psychiatrist,” he said. “Now you've got trauma therapists to help all these Indigenous people and sexual abuse survivors like myself deal with the trauma 30 days later after being clean.”

He said another reason he sends people to Thailand is the lack of opiates in the country. Thailand still has the death penalty for certain serious drug-related offences like production, import, and export, and people can get up to three years in jail for using drugs.

“There's no heroin in that country. I went to every prostitution, gang ville, junkie ville, you name it. I couldn't find it,” he said. “You give somebody 25 years in prison for selling an ounce of fentanyl, and you start watching drug dealers go to jail. A lot of people are going to think twice about selling fentanyl. I sold drugs half my life. I have drug convictions as an adult,” he said.

Bhatti said getting clean is the first step in a long journey and a plan for what happens after someone gets sober is important to helping them stay sober. 

“Most drug addicts like myself who have been in prison for eight years have zero life skills,” he said. “I couldn't even get hired at a garbage dump when I got clean. You better make sure that the treatment centre has a pre-release program to help people get life skills, basic food safety, first aid and jobs that will accept criminals like me. Otherwise, you're just going to get them clean, throw them back on the street, and they can't get a job.”

Click here for more about Andy Bhatti.

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