As drug deaths surge, one answer might be helping people get high more safely
OTTAWA, Ontario — On a weekday afternoon, Max — who didn't want his last name used — sat on a plastic chair in a private clinic in downtown Ottawa waiting to get a supply of the drug he uses to get high.
"I used to be a complete mess before I got on this program," he said. "I used to inject a gram of meth every day three times a day."
Max is a fragile-looking man, 26 years old, who has been injecting methamphetamines for more than a decade. He doesn't have a permanent home and still gets high on the streets.
But instead of buying high-risk drugs, often laced with fentanyl and other chemicals by dealers, he injects stable doses of Ritalin prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacist.
He receives this controversial form of addiction care, known as "safe supply," every week. The program is funded in large part by government insurance programs and closely monitored by Canadian health officials.
Max says with this kind of medical supervision, his overall drug use has declined sharply: "I've gone dramatically down. I've made big progress
