{"id":186722,"date":"2018-10-23T23:04:44","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T03:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=186722"},"modified":"2018-10-23T23:04:44","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T03:04:44","slug":"opioid-crisis-may-decreasing-life-expectancy-canadians-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/10\/23\/opioid-crisis-may-decreasing-life-expectancy-canadians-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Opioid crisis may be decreasing life expectancy for Canadians: report"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tam said the department is still working on national calculations, to get a broader view of the statistics that have been revealed in B.C., and added that one might expect to see similar numbers at the national level. (File Photo<\/a>: @ACSP_Canada\/Twitter<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA \u2014\u00a0Canada’s chief public health officer says the opioid crisis is responsible for limiting Canadians’ life expectancy.<\/p>\n

In a report released Tuesday, Dr. Theresa Tam says life expectancy has been steadily on the rise in\u00a0Canada\u00a0but she warns that life expectancy in B.C. is decreasing \u2014 the province hit hardest by the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n

Tam said in an interview that there has been about 1,000 deaths related to the opioid crisis in the first quarter of 2018, saying it’s on track to see the same numbers as last year, which saw nearly 4,000 Canadians die from apparent opioid overdoses.<\/p>\n

The significant number of B.C. deaths caused by opioid overdoses, particularly among men, is going to have an impact on broader life expectancy rates, she said<\/p>\n

Tam said the department is still working on national calculations, to get a broader view of the statistics that have been revealed in B.C., and added that one might expect to see similar numbers at the national level.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery province in\u00a0Canada\u00a0has experienced the impacts of the opioid crisis, so I think we would expect that dip in life expectancy gains that we see in B.C., maybe not in the same level of magnitude,\u201d said Tam.<\/p>\n

Tam’s report, focusing on alcohol, cannabis and opioid use among youth, also says the drop in life expectancy is more prominent among men and Canadians living in poorer neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

Men in their 20s, 30s and up to age 49, particularly in B.C., are particularly vulnerable, she said.<\/p>\n

Tam said\u00a0Canada\u00a0needs to apply a gender-based approach in analysing why men are disproportionately impacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we do need different approaches to address the gender-based uniqueness of the impact,\u201d said Tam.<\/p>\n

Tam said in the report that Canadian regulations coming soon that will restrict marketing and advertising of opioids to health-care practitioners, \u201cmay help\u201d reduce over prescribing of the drugs.<\/p>\n

What\u00a0Canada\u00a0learned from tobacco in terms of regulation, restricting access and denormalizing its use needs to be applied to cannabis to ensure it isn’t further normalized, Tam added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to monitor that,\u201d she said, adding that alcohol may be the most neglected drug that is overly normalized, especially among teens.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor said today that she supports Tam’s call for a co-ordinated approach across departments to prevent substance abuse among youth.<\/p>\n

Tam said it’s important to ensure cannabis isn’t attractive to youth, and especially to those who use the drug to cope with stress.<\/p>\n

\u201cTackling every drug issue at the time of a crisis is not where I want to go and we need to go upstream and get to prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014\u00a0Canada’s chief public health officer says the opioid crisis is responsible for limiting Canadians’ life expectancy. In a report …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":186727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,37,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-health","category-news","mauthors-janice-dickson","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}