Helen Jennens poses for a photograph in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday January 8, 2018. Helen Jennens is supporting New Democrat member of Parliament Don Davies' calls for the federal government to launch a criminal investigation against the manufacturers of opioids that are fueling an overdose crisis and to pursue compensation for addiction treatment.

Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Prescribed safer supply services have been established in Kelowna, Vernon, Nelson and Kamloops by Interior Health which a Kelowna advocate said is a crucial step forward towards better drug policies.

The introduction of these services to the Okanagan region are part of a Canada-wide initiative to tackle to the opioid overdose crisis. Within Interior Health, there were 710 clients that were prescribed opioid safer supply in June 2023 and 677 clients in July 2023, an Interior Health Spokesperson told iNFOnews.ca. These can include prescription fentanyl patches or hydromorphone. 

Helen Jennens of Kelowna an active local spokesperson for the Canadian organization Moms Stop the Harm. She is vocal about issues in current drug policies and in the general perception of people suffering from addiction.

For Jennens, the problem finds its roots in the conversation around addiction and the overdose crisis.

“We were calling what was happening an overdose crisis, which is really not what it is. It's a toxic drug crisis,” she told iNFOnews.ca. “People are not using too much and overdosing. They're just getting a toxic supply and it's killing them.”

Helen understands the danger and tragedy of drug overdoses all too well.

“My oldest son, Ryan, died of a prescription drug overdose following an accident,” she said. “It was in 2011 before… we were seeing this toxic supply. But my younger son, he ruptured his Achilles and had surgery and was given OxyContin and that's how he developed his opioid dependency. When the OxyContin got too expensive, of course, his drug use escalated to heroin. And then heroin was virtually no longer on the street, and it was just fentanyl.”

On the day Jennen's younger son, Tyler, died, he had bought what he thought was heroin. He was given pure fentanyl, which was ultimately fatal. This week, on Oct. 3, would have been Tyler’s 48th birthday.

“I don't even know, had we gotten to him as soon as possible, if we could have saved him," Jennens said. “I believe that if I could have provided my son a safe supply, or if he could have access to safe supply while we organized his treatment and recovery, he might be alive and I might have my son and his kids might have their father.”

Safer supply services are designed to provide people like Tyler with a safer alternative to the toxic substances that are available on the street.

“Prescribed safer supply is a critical intervention to separate people from toxic street drugs,” an Interior Health and Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions spokesperson told iNFOnews.ca. “(It keeps) people alive so they have a chance to access health care supports, including treatment and recovery. There is a demand for prescribed safer supply services locally and it is an important part of Interior Health's toxic drug supply response.”

The service differs from Opioid Agonist Therapy, which has been more commonly available in the region. That's an evidence-based option of medications used to provide relief from withdrawal symptoms and cravings in people with opioid use disorder.

Patients undergoing opioid therapy receive doses of methadone, slow release oral morphine or similar medication to aid them in their recovery from addiction.

Prescribed safer supplies are similar, where patients will be prescribed Hydromorphone tablets or a Fentanyl Patch. However, this is not intended as a treatment.

“Prescribed Safer Supply – Prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives are not intended for treatment of substance use disorders but is primarily a harm reduction approach as one strategy for reducing the risks of illicit drug toxicity events and deaths,” the Interior Health spokesperson said.

For Jennens, this service is a crucial prevention tool to help prevent further loss of life from substance use.

“Seven people (die from overdose) in British Columbia a day. You've got seven families going through what I went through, losing both sons every single day,” she said. “It's not like we're just going to do this till the end of time. We're going to do this until we get a system in place that will work for people to actually get well.”

If safer supplies are going to become more accessible, the perception of addiction needs to change, Helen said.

“We don't let people suffer with other diseases like we do with substance use disorder,” she said. “We want to look at these people as (if) they're choosing this, (but) there's no choice in addiction. Once you've gotten entrenched in substance use you don't have a choice anymore. I always say my boys died doing something they hated, not something they loved.”

“(The general public) thinks getting high is about a party and getting high is actually about not getting sick,” she said. “The general public needs to be educated and understand that, compassionately, this is just what we should do. We wouldn't withhold medication in any other circumstance. We're withholding it in this one.”

According to Interior Health, people who use safer supply services are not only less at risk of illicit drug toxicity and death, they are also less at risk of communicable disease exposure and infection and less likely to engage in high-risk and criminalized activities (e.g., sex work) to support their substance use.

They are also able to maintain, seek, or gain employment or volunteer activities, reconnect with their family and friends and therefore improve their social functioning, attain safe housing and access other social services and enter substance use treatment.

“Part of the theory behind safe supply is (to) save some lives. To give these people a chance to get to a place where they want to seek out treatment and recovery,” Jennens said. “Because right now, there's very few options for people that do want to get well… and the bottom line is, a dead substance user has no chance of recovering.”

There has been some hesitancy towards safer supplies services as a government funded initiative. This, Jennens said, is due to a lack of education.

“I know it's a hard sell,” she said. “People that don't understand it think we're just going to use taxpayers dollars and we're going to stand on the corner and we're going to hand out diacetylmorphine to people that use substances… that is not what's going to happen and it's very complicated. Each person in substance use has to be assessed… it's a real process and it's not easy.”

“(People) have no idea that it is way less expensive to do it this way than the way we're currently doing it… Hundreds of first responders reacting to overdose situations, police, ambulance, fire, arriving at overdoses, sending these people into hospitals, overloading our emergency and our hospitals, the brain injuries, and now looking after people that didn't succumb to the toxic drugs, but have a lifelong brain injury.

"Safe supply would be the least expensive way to go. It would also be the most humane way to go. And we'd actually save people from dying.”

More information about safer supplies can be found on the Canada Government website here. 

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