Helping your school-age children to avoid drugs

 QUESTION: Dear Adele, Our only son will be starting high school this year and we are worried about his exposure to illicit drugs and possible choice to experiment with them. We are looking for advice. Can you help? First Time Through the Gauntlet ANSWER: Dear First Time Through the Gauntlet,

Ottawa’s opioid crisis: Whose kid has to die?

 Have you ever wondered whose kid has to die before we target the tsunami of death flooding our city? Would the 40 dead Ottawans in 2016 or 64 more in 2017 suffice perhaps? Or would it take one of our politician’s youngsters to succumb, having been sucked into the cesspools

More isn’t always better when it comes to prescription medications

 Canadians are living longer than ever, and we are also taking more medications than ever before. And this can make us sicker, not healthier. A report released last week by the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that one in four seniors in Canada are taking 10 or more medications.

Turning the tide on the harm of opioids

 By Wendy Levinson and Laurent Marcoux As clinicians, we are bound by professionalism and our ethical responsibilities to do no harm and to do what we can to address the pain and suffering of our patients. When powerful pain relieving opioid medications were introduced a few decades ago, they seemed

What you need to know about prescription opioids

 You were playing some pick-up hockey with friends and slipped and broke your leg. Or you were running across the street, tripped over the curb and fractured your elbow. Or maybe you experience overwhelming pain from a chronic medical condition and your healthcare provider feels opioids may help manage your

Solving Canada’s Opioid Epidemic Must Include Tackling What Got Us into the Predicament in the First Place

 By all accounts we are in the midst of a deadly drug epidemic so severe and widespread few people in North America will remain untouched by it.  In case you think I’m exaggerating, right now we have probably the highest rates of narcotic abuse and deaths in modern history. Critics

It’s Time to End Canada’s Opioid Epidemic – An Open Letter to Canada’s New Minister of Health

 Dear Minister Philpott, Congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Health. As an experienced physician, you bring valuable perspective to the post. While there are many contentious matters before you, including a new health accord, physician-assisted dying and marijuana legalization, few could be more pressing than the prescription opioid epidemic,