In late February, Andrea Sereda addressed the parliamentary health committee and spoke about her work as the lead physician directing a safer supply program in London, Ontario. Safer supply refers to providing individuals with opioid use disorder with a safer alternative to the toxic, illegal drug supply on the streets, where the likelihood of overdose and death is considerably higher. Referred to as harm reduction, it is one of several methods of combating an overdose crisis in Canada that has claimed over 44,000 lives since 2016.
Sereda was asked whether safer supply medications are ending up in the hands of users for whom the drugs have not been prescribed, such as children. She said there was no evidence of that happening. In a later conversation with the drug policy reform advocacy group Moms Stop the Harm, Sereda explained that it was possible for kids to access diverted safer supply—a simple reality of the proclivity of youth to experiment with drugs.
