COVID-19 has exacerbated a separate public health emergency in North America: a rise in fatal drug overdoses. The quality of street drugs is a big factor, along with increased isolation and closures of health services due to the pandemic. This past year, the US saw more overdoses from illegal drugs than ever before. In the western Canadian province of British Columbia, the crisis prompted an untested response. Officials decided to make it easier for doctors to prescribe people drugs that they’d normally get on the streets. Now BC is expanding the program, as The World’s Elana Gordon reports.
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