A cry for help: the impacts of the opioid crisis on the nation’s youth
By: Jasmine Sikand
March 10, 2017
“It’s always something that reminds you—some little thing, some song. It’s something that doesn’t go away. It stares you in the face,” Jennifer Woodside says of her son Dylan Bassler.
Dylan was 21 years old when he unexpectedly suffered from a fatal fentanyl overdose in 2013.
“It hit us out of the blue,” she says. “I wasn’t aware of fentanyl. Dylan wasn’t aware of fentanyl. His friends had never heard of it.”
Dylan took a pill with the desire to be high, and it killed him. He didn’t know it was laced with fentanyl.
Woodside says the prominence of the drug has grown immensely over the past three years.
“He was just at the beginning of it,” she says. “It’s (fentanyl) everywhere, it doesn’t know any borders.”
The impact of opioids on Woodside’s family are much like many other cases sweeping the nation: lives being lost so suddenly, with nothing but shock and unanswered questions. The problem has become so widespread, the country is now calling it a crisis. While the focus has generally been on adult users, the struggle of youth addiction has been waiting anxiously on the sidelines. It has been a rising struggle since the presence of opioids began to increase in Canada.
A recent report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse found from 2007 to 2015, hospitalization rates changed most drastically amongst youth aged 15 to 24 with an increase by 62 per cent.
Dennis Long, executive director at Breakaway Addictions in Toronto, says the number of youth seeking help for opioid addiction has also been increasing.
He says before the opioid crisis, his treatment centre usually saw people in their mid-30s, with maybe one or two teenagers every couple of years. “Now we’re getting a steady stream.”
A big question with youth addiction is how supervised injection sites, a hot topic in terms of controlling the opioid crisis, will impact youth. Long says he doesn’t expect many youth to be using these facilities because most younger people start using drugs orally, rather than by injection.
Marilou Gagnon, a nursing professor at the University of Ottawa, stresses supervised injection sites are necessary, but they will only help a small percentage of people who inject. And a lot of these people are not youth.
“(Supervised injection sites) wouldn’t make the difference in terms of addressing all the needs of people who use drugs,” she says.
In terms of reaching a younger demographic, Caleb Chepesiuk, harm reduction co-ordinator at AIDS Ottawa, says youth are being considered in the creation process of supervised injection sites.
“There have been questions around things like age limits or whether someone can go there if they’ve never injected before,” he says. Because of this, he says he is hopeful these facilities would be able to help some youth.
He says supervised injection sites are just a piece of the puzzle, and there are many other ways to help youth struggling with opioid addiction.
One other way could be the legalization of all drugs, something Donna May has been pushing for ever since she lost her 35-year-old daughter Jac Gray to a long-term opioid addiction.
She says the first step is decriminalizing drug use across the board.
“This is not something that is a willful behavior, and that is what we’ve been taught as parents for generations now,” she says.
May suggests the government bring forward an education campaign for the public, aiding in the shift of the general mindset to one of a public health concern, rather than focusing on the criminalization of substance abuse.
She says doing this will drive the public to help those who are suffering from drug use through rehabilitation and treatment, rather than stigmatizing, labeling and punishing their behaviours criminally as if they are made solely by choice.
Many youth are not educated enough about the consequences they could face by taking something as simple as a little pill, May says. More and more so, laced drugs are taking lives in Canada’s population – and fentanyl can be cut into anything.
Ottawa health and police officials warned the public Feb. 13 of a rise in counterfeit pills made to look almost identical to opioids like oxycodone that have been linked to recent fatal, or nearly fatal overdoses across the city.
The next day, Chloe Kotval, a 14-year-old from Kanata, died after overdosing on an unknown pharmaceutical drug, according to a statement by her family. Police confirmed that pills found near her body contained fentanyl. Her death has increased the urgency of calls of more awareness and control over opioid and general drug use.
According to Woodside and May, “nothing is pure” when it comes to most drugs on the streets in Canada.
Once youth are addicted, it doesn’t take long for them to be in a situation where they could die, Woodside says. This is where the struggle for treatment is most problematic.
Regarding this struggle, Mike Beauchesne, executive director at Dave Smith Treatment Centre in Ottawa, says the whole sector lacks the ability to provide youth with what they need, resulting in wait lists that continue to grow.
“Roughly 13 per cent of our youth use needles, and about 30 per cent report using heroin or other opioids on a minimum weekly basis,” he says.
Despite the widely supported belief that supervised injection sites will not be seeing much youth usage, the fairly high numbers reflected in Beauchesne’s centre could suggest otherwise.
Beauchesne says because of those little, seemingly harmless pills, there are spikes in accidental overdose deaths across Canada, something Dylan and Chloe personally fell victim to.
What is commonly considered in treating drug addictions is the presence of mental illnesses. Woodside says many youth suffering from these other issues try to self-medicate with drugs.
“They won’t seek psychological help, but if they suffer from anxiety or depression, this is one of the things they will do,” she says.
May says these drugs make you feel better, regardless of if you’re taking it for physical or mental pain, or just to “have fun,” which she learned from Jac, whose social anxieties were relieved by opioid consumption.
Many youth don’t understand the addictive properties of opiates, which are so strong that they can get you hooked in just one use, May says. “That’s the invincible nature of youth. They don’t think it will happen to them, but it does, it can, and it will.”
“We have the ability today to make the changes that are needed to be sure no other person will die from an opiate overdose,” May says.
Because of a single, seemingly harmless pill unknowingly laced with fentanyl, Dylan will be a 21-year-old university student from B.C. forever, with friends and family who are left with the constant reminder of his absence.
Despite the negative emotions Woodside struggles to escape since Dylan’s death, she says she finds hope in knowing she and her fellow advocates are being heard in their aim to control opioid use in Canada.
She says she also finds hope in feeling Dylan’s presence around her, especially when she looks into the face of her remaining son.
“I can see his expressions, I can see Dylan,” she says.
Dylan was 21 years old when he unexpectedly suffered from a fatal fentanyl overdose in 2013.
“It hit us out of the blue,” she says. “I wasn’t aware of fentanyl. Dylan wasn’t aware of fentanyl. His friends had never heard of it.”
Dylan took a pill with the desire to be high, and it killed him. He didn’t know it was laced with fentanyl.
Woodside says the prominence of the drug has grown immensely over the past three years.
“He was just at the beginning of it,” she says. “It’s (fentanyl) everywhere, it doesn’t know any borders.”
The impact of opioids on Woodside’s family are much like many other cases sweeping the nation: lives being lost so suddenly, with nothing but shock and unanswered questions. The problem has become so widespread, the country is now calling it a crisis. While the focus has generally been on adult users, the struggle of youth addiction has been waiting anxiously on the sidelines. It has been a rising struggle since the presence of opioids began to increase in Canada.
A recent report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse found from 2007 to 2015, hospitalization rates changed most drastically amongst youth aged 15 to 24 with an increase by 62 per cent.
Dennis Long, executive director at Breakaway Addictions in Toronto, says the number of youth seeking help for opioid addiction has also been increasing.
He says before the opioid crisis, his treatment centre usually saw people in their mid-30s, with maybe one or two teenagers every couple of years. “Now we’re getting a steady stream.”
A big question with youth addiction is how supervised injection sites, a hot topic in terms of controlling the opioid crisis, will impact youth. Long says he doesn’t expect many youth to be using these facilities because most younger people start using drugs orally, rather than by injection.
Marilou Gagnon, a nursing professor at the University of Ottawa, stresses supervised injection sites are necessary, but they will only help a small percentage of people who inject. And a lot of these people are not youth.
“(Supervised injection sites) wouldn’t make the difference in terms of addressing all the needs of people who use drugs,” she says.
In terms of reaching a younger demographic, Caleb Chepesiuk, harm reduction co-ordinator at AIDS Ottawa, says youth are being considered in the creation process of supervised injection sites.
“There have been questions around things like age limits or whether someone can go there if they’ve never injected before,” he says. Because of this, he says he is hopeful these facilities would be able to help some youth.
He says supervised injection sites are just a piece of the puzzle, and there are many other ways to help youth struggling with opioid addiction.
One other way could be the legalization of all drugs, something Donna May has been pushing for ever since she lost her 35-year-old daughter Jac Gray to a long-term opioid addiction.
She says the first step is decriminalizing drug use across the board.
“This is not something that is a willful behavior, and that is what we’ve been taught as parents for generations now,” she says.
May suggests the government bring forward an education campaign for the public, aiding in the shift of the general mindset to one of a public health concern, rather than focusing on the criminalization of substance abuse.
She says doing this will drive the public to help those who are suffering from drug use through rehabilitation and treatment, rather than stigmatizing, labeling and punishing their behaviours criminally as if they are made solely by choice.
Many youth are not educated enough about the consequences they could face by taking something as simple as a little pill, May says. More and more so, laced drugs are taking lives in Canada’s population – and fentanyl can be cut into anything.
Ottawa health and police officials warned the public Feb. 13 of a rise in counterfeit pills made to look almost identical to opioids like oxycodone that have been linked to recent fatal, or nearly fatal overdoses across the city.
The next day, Chloe Kotval, a 14-year-old from Kanata, died after overdosing on an unknown pharmaceutical drug, according to a statement by her family. Police confirmed that pills found near her body contained fentanyl. Her death has increased the urgency of calls of more awareness and control over opioid and general drug use.
According to Woodside and May, “nothing is pure” when it comes to most drugs on the streets in Canada.
Once youth are addicted, it doesn’t take long for them to be in a situation where they could die, Woodside says. This is where the struggle for treatment is most problematic.
Regarding this struggle, Mike Beauchesne, executive director at Dave Smith Treatment Centre in Ottawa, says the whole sector lacks the ability to provide youth with what they need, resulting in wait lists that continue to grow.
“Roughly 13 per cent of our youth use needles, and about 30 per cent report using heroin or other opioids on a minimum weekly basis,” he says.
Despite the widely supported belief that supervised injection sites will not be seeing much youth usage, the fairly high numbers reflected in Beauchesne’s centre could suggest otherwise.
Beauchesne says because of those little, seemingly harmless pills, there are spikes in accidental overdose deaths across Canada, something Dylan and Chloe personally fell victim to.
What is commonly considered in treating drug addictions is the presence of mental illnesses. Woodside says many youth suffering from these other issues try to self-medicate with drugs.
“They won’t seek psychological help, but if they suffer from anxiety or depression, this is one of the things they will do,” she says.
May says these drugs make you feel better, regardless of if you’re taking it for physical or mental pain, or just to “have fun,” which she learned from Jac, whose social anxieties were relieved by opioid consumption.
Many youth don’t understand the addictive properties of opiates, which are so strong that they can get you hooked in just one use, May says. “That’s the invincible nature of youth. They don’t think it will happen to them, but it does, it can, and it will.”
“We have the ability today to make the changes that are needed to be sure no other person will die from an opiate overdose,” May says.
Because of a single, seemingly harmless pill unknowingly laced with fentanyl, Dylan will be a 21-year-old university student from B.C. forever, with friends and family who are left with the constant reminder of his absence.
Despite the negative emotions Woodside struggles to escape since Dylan’s death, she says she finds hope in knowing she and her fellow advocates are being heard in their aim to control opioid use in Canada.
She says she also finds hope in feeling Dylan’s presence around her, especially when she looks into the face of her remaining son.
“I can see his expressions, I can see Dylan,” she says.
