I was very pleased to see the Nova Scotia Department Of Health and Wellness finally release the recommendations their working group put together back in June of this year. However , what the heck took so long if there is no action plan with these recommendations? The recommendations this working group put together sound amazing , they had all the right answers. They seem to be missing one thing though , ACTION ! The 2 recommendations that Health Department says they are already working on are not going to help the people who need it the most ! They have put more money into prescription monitoring which will help doctors and pharmacists be able to see patient profiles 24/7 . This is great ! However the program will not be fully implemented until 2014. They also said they will be launching a public awareness campaign on the dangers of mixing drugs and alcohol. I have yet to see any of this “campaign” and this is something that is not going to help the people who need it the most right now ADDICTS! I thought there would be some sort of priority to these recommendations . It is plain to see what the priority is now though , MONEY! The two most time sensitive and health related recommendations in my eyes are #7 and #9 which are :

• (7) Develop a functional plan for how to support people on wait lists for methadone maintenance , and other addiction services , and non pharmaceutical treatment for chronic pain.

• (9) Increase access to quality opiate dependency treatment by :

• Recruiting and retaining physicians to provide primary care office based opiate treatment , by providing the necessary training , support , and academic detailing to physicians who take on this area of practice.

• Supporting DHA’s/IWK current work to develop a coordinated care model to enhance stabilization , assessment, and treatment of opiate dependant individuals through the provision of a comprehensive opiate treatment program in the community.

These recommendations above have not been implemented nor say they are EVER going to be implemented . These are the two most costly therefore the government wants to do more “research” on them ! Give me a break !! How many more dead kids , crime , pharmacy robberies , and suicides do you need? What is the magic number here?? These opiate drugs are tearing apart our communities in more ways than one. Do you think these drug addicts are being productive members of society?? Probably not . They are the ones breaking into your car , shed , cottage to get money to feed their addiction . Do you think they are working or going to school ?? Most not while using because it is so hard just to FUNCTION when you’re an opiate addict let alone be productive.

The Nova Scotia Government just accepted 130,000 from Purdue Pharma in March of this year to expand their chronic pain care. This is the company that makes all the narcotic pain killers such as dillaudid and oxy contin. This is also the company who was criminally convicted in the United States for mis advertising Oxy Contin to doctors as less addictive than previous pain killers. So the government will take money from charged criminals to enhance their practice of “managing pain” but won’t help any of the people affected by this company’s malice business practices. In a media release put out at the time of the donation the company said they recognize 1 in 5 Nova Scotians suffer from chronic pain and they have the drugs to help ! Scary to think about 20% of our province on narcotic pain killers??!! Why is the government letting this multi billion dollar drug company come into our province with their sole intention of marketing their drug which is killing and destroying our communities??

I thought the Government was supposed to be accountable to the people they are representing . Where is the accountability here?