In Canada, the Federal Health Minister said that they are going to be introducing legislation that will reverse the decision taken by the government allowing generic drug makers to produce their own versions of powerful painkillers, such as OxyContin.
Federal Health Minister, Rona Ambrose said that the government is acting to combat this “silent killer” as more become addicted to prescribed medication. This is part of a suite of measures that will include ensuring that all opioids available in Canada come with tamper proof technology. They will also be developing new guidelines for the prescribing of such medications by physicians.
Rona Ambrose also said that after Health Canada approved generic oxycodone products back in 2012, their guidelines only allowed the department to look at how effective these generic products were as painkillers. They didn’t take into consideration public health or the safety implications to the public through increasing the supply of drugs, some of which doctors are now claiming kill more Canadians that auto accidents do.
Ambrose’s predecessor Leona Aglukkag decided to approve generic versions of OxyContin even though the US had blocked the entry of such generic medications into their market following the patent for OxyContin running out.
In the US they saw prescriptions and overdoses drop by about 20%. But in Canada the problem has become much worse, especially on First Nation reserves say many observers.
Ambrose also said that in Canada 410,000 people had been abusing prescription medication in 2012. She also suspects that Canada is now one of largest user of opioids around the world on a per capita basis. “That’s why we are basically reversing the decision (on generics),” she said.
But she had denied that it was a mistake to approve the use of generics in the first place. “It wasn’t a mistake. The framework in which Health Canada scientists were making the decision was ‘Is this effective for pain relief?’, without looking at the other implications for public health. So that’s why we’re going to change it.”
The Canadian government is now at an advance stage already where they require all manufacturers who supply controlled release oxycodone medication to make sure that their products are tamper resistant. This in turn will ensure that they are much tougher to crush making them harder to snort or inject.
Purdue Pharma’sOxyNEO a replacement for OxyContin has already been made tamper proof. Now when crushed these drugs turn to mush. These new regulations when issued will then force other manufacturers of opioids to follow in the footsteps of Purdue.