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adam zivo: new class action lawsuit against 'safer supply' was long overdue
families of two teen girls addicted to opioids, one who died, put the blame on government policy
aug 19 2024
5 minute read
greg sword and his 14-year-old daughter kamilah. kamilah died from an overdose after becoming addicted to hydromorphone, a drug commonly prescribed as part of b.c.'s safer supply programs.
a proposed class action lawsuit has been filed in the b.c. supreme court on behalf of two teenage girls who developed opioid addictions due to, the lawsuit claims, diverted “safer supply” drugs. this litigation is long overdue and sorely needed.
safer supply programs distribute free addictive drugs — typically eight-milligram tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin — to mitigate the use of riskier street substances. though advocates claim this “saves lives,” a series of stories in the national post has shown that clients regularly divert (sell or trade) their hydromorphone on the black market, which then floods communities with the drug and fuels new addictions and relapses.
according to the lawsuit, the lead plaintiffs — kamilah sword and amelie north — began experimenting with diverted safer supply hydromorphone tablets, colloquially known as “dillies,” when they were only 14 years old, which caused both girls to develop crippling opioid addictions. while amelie remains addicted to opioids, kamilah died of drug-related causes in august 2022 (kamilah’s father is representing her in litigation), says the statement of claim.
none of these allegations in the lawsuit have been proven in court.
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the lawsuit further alleges that the girls had been willing to experiment with hydromorphone because the drug had been misleadingly represented as “safe” by the government.
in the interest of transparency, i should disclose that, in my capacity as the executive director of the centre for responsible drug policy, i provided an unpaid two hour presentation about safer supply to the plaintiffs’ lawyers the week before they filed their statement of claim.
when i interviewed her for the post last year, amelie and another friend, madison (a pseudonym), who was also close to kamilah, said that dillies abruptly became affordable and highly accessible at their school in port coquitlam, b.c., starting around 2021 and 2022, which attracted them to the drug. the girls said that they and kamilah predominantly acquired hydromorphone from a teenage drug dealer, logan (a pseudonym), but madison also described purchasing dillies directly from safer supply clients in downtown vancouver.
i interviewed logan this spring after he was admitted to rehab following a stint in jail. he described buying and trafficking thousands of safer supply hydromorphone tablets from downtown vancouver in his capacity as a gang member, and maintained that he had sold the girls genuine safer supply, including on the night of kamilah’s death.
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the b.c. government and federal government are the primary defendants named in the lawsuit, but the statement of claim also identifies two provincial health authorities (vancouver coastal health and island health) along with numerous clinics, organizations and medical professionals that prescribe safer supply.
the lawsuit alleges that “kamilah and amelie relied on the negligent misrepresentations to begin consuming the safe supply drugs believing they were safe and they relied upon the negligent misrepresentations throughout the duration of their addictions.”
it is also alleged that both canada and b.c. knew that safer supply drugs were being diverted as early as march 2021, when health canada published a report specifically noting the problem. despite this, both governments allegedly failed to “adequately monitor diversion through unbiased and independent studies,” and “recklessly (encouraged) the relaxed and rampant prescribing of safe supply drugs” in a manner that “created a market for the safer supply drugs that did not previously exist.”
while the b.c. ndp and trudeau government claim to oppose diversion, the lawsuit alleges that they, in fact, condoned and even encouraged the practice, either “knowingly or unknowingly but recklessly and with wilful blindness.” for example, in april 2022 the national safer supply community of practice, an influential harm reduction organization funded by health canada, released a document, “reframing diversion for health care providers,” which described diversion in positive terms and encouraged doctors to look the other way if patients were illegally reselling their drugs.
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the lawsuit also accused a number of organizations and health care professionals that prescribe safer supply of failing to implement sufficient anti-diversion safeguards, and of unreasonably overprescribing these drugs while knowing that many of them would be resold.
although the b.c. coroners service is not listed as a defendant, it is claimed in the lawsuit that the coroner, “through undue pressure by the province or for other reasons unknown to the plaintiffs,” omitted safer supply hydromorphone as a cause of kamilah’s death and that such omissions may have occurred with other cases.
toxicological analysis ordered by the coroner found that kamilah had hydromorphone, counterfeit xanax and small amounts of mdma and metabolized cocaine in her blood. the coroner ultimately released a report claiming that kamilah died due to a cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine and mdma, not hydromorphone, and that “from where and when any of the substances were obtained by kamilah is unknown.”
however, her death investigation was criticized by several addiction physicians, toxicologists and a former senior coroner who i interviewed earlier this year for the national post.
these experts said that mdma and cocaine overdoses are vanishingly rare among youth and, as kamilah’s body was not autopsied, confidently diagnosing a cardiac arrhythmia would have been impossible. in complex polysubstance deaths, the best practice is generally to list all major substances as a cause of death, which would have meant including hydromorphone, some said.
it is also unclear why the coroner ignored normal protocols and failed to interview kamilah’s family and friends about her drug use. the results of kamilah’s death investigation were released six months after the girls and their families spoke to the media and shared how kamilah had consumed, and subsequently became addicted to, hydromorphone that allegedly originated from safer supply — it is hard to imagine that the coroner was unaware of this.
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should the class action lawsuit be accepted by the supreme court, membership as a plaintiff will be open to anyone who has purchased and consumed safer supply drugs, or illegal substances which they simply believe were diverted safer supply, as well as the families of these individuals.
the named defendants either did not immediately respond to a request for comment, or declined to comment as the matter is before the courts.
“if a family has concerns about a coroner’s investigation, they can express those concerns in writing to either the chief coroner or the office of the ombudsperson,” wrote a representative for the coroner, repeating a response sent to the post in january.
national post
adam zivo is executive director of the centre for responsible drug policy.
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