Face of Nation : Alberta’s associate minister of mental health is facing a call for removal from his job after comments he made about an opioid antidote.
After an event Friday, Jason Luan told reporters that he had learned naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote, has been used as a way to push the limits of opioid dosing.
He said he was worried that youth were deliberately taking larger doses of opioids, knowing that naloxone can be used to reverse an overdose. He also raised the concern that the distribution of naloxone kits might be enabling greater drug use — a suggestion strongly opposed by a top Calgary medical professional.
“You know the naloxone kit that we send as an emergency recovery for people with overdose? Actually, the kids take that, knowing they have the kit, because now you’re safe,” Luan told reporters.
“They want to push it to their limit, how far they can go to overdose, because they’re safe, because the kit is there,” he said. “Lots of times we’re trying to make it easier, wanting to help, but it’s a fine line. If you cross that line, you become an enabler.”
Luan, who is a member of the governing United Conservative Party, made the comments after meeting with Albertans directly affected by addictions in Calgary on Friday for a roundtable discussion. The event was held ahead of, and to mark, International Overdose Awareness Day on Saturday.
Heather Sweet, the provincial NDP’s mental health and addiction critic, called on Premier Jason Kenney to remove Luan from his portfolio at a press conference in Edmonton Saturday afternoon.
“There is a clear bias by this associate minister,” she said. “The premier needs to fire him and needs to hire someone who’s actually willing to work with Albertans and talk about addictions and mental health in a productive and solution-focused way.”
Sweet said it’s not the first time Luan has spoken callously about addiction, pointing to a controversial comment made earlier this summer. He deleted a tweet in which he wondered if research supporting supervised consumption sites was funded by big pharma. Through a spokesperson, Luan said he was misunderstood.
Petra Schulz co-founded Moms Stop the Harm, a national network of people whose loved ones died from drug-related harms. Her son Danny died from an accidental fentanyl overdose at 25-years-old, leading her to advocate for harm reduction strategies.
Schulz said she was gravely concerned by the associate minister’s comments and worried they would cast doubt over the life-saving power of naloxone.
“He basically stigmatizes a proven public health intervention that has saved thousands of lives in this province,” Schulz said at an Overdose Awareness Day event in Edmonton.
