New opioid prescription policies released last week reflect what 91大黄鸭鈥檚 Brian Gervais has been saying.

Some of the responsibility for B.C.鈥檚 drug crisis rests on how doctors doled out medication in the last decade.

鈥淚鈥檝e been watching the (opioid crisis) happen from a first-hand perspective, and it鈥檚 been very frustrating,鈥� said Gervais. 鈥淒octors were handing (opioids) out like candy.鈥�

Gervais has Crohn鈥檚 disease and five years ago a complication from his condition led to a painful intestinal surgery. Complications from that initial operation then led to three more surgeries, and what he describes as an incredibly painful recovery.

To manage the pain, he was prescribed Hydromorphone, which is also known as dihydromorphinone, and sold under the brand name Dilaudid, among others. It鈥檚 a centrally acting pain medication of the opioid class and a derivative of morphine.

鈥淲hen you take it, you aren鈥檛 told you are taking something equivalent to heroin鈥攖hey just don鈥檛 tell you about that,鈥� he said.

Gervais said he was prescribed the medication because he was unable to work, and therefore on a fixed income. That meant he couldn鈥檛 afford any other style of treatment that would have helped reduce the symptoms of chronic pain.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e a person on disability making $900 a month, the only thing you could do to manage your pain was take the drugs provided by the government,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 pay for physiotherapy or massage and (the drugs) are quick acting.鈥�

What Gervais didn鈥檛 realize when he first was prescribed those pain meds, however, is that he was going to become an addict in addition to being chronically ill and chronically in pain.

鈥淚 was taken on a ride and thinking, 鈥榯his is what I was supposed to do,鈥欌�� he said.

鈥淏ut when you take opioids you are building a tolerance. It doesn鈥檛 matter how strong-willed you are, your body reacts as it does and tolerance keeps building and growing.鈥�

It鈥檚 no secret that Canada is now in the midst of an opioid epidemic.

This country is the world鈥檚 second highest per-capita consumer of opioid pain relievers. In an article spelling out new prescribing policies, the Canadian Medical Association Journal said in Ontario admissions to publicly funded treatment programs for opioid-related problems doubled from 2004 to 2013, from 8,799 to 18,232.

鈥淎mong Ontarians receiving social assistance, one of every 550 patients who started on chronic opioid therapy died of opioid-related causes at a median of 2.6 years from the first opioid prescription, while one in 32 of those receiving 200 mg morphine equivalents daily or more died of opioid-related causes.鈥�

In B.C. the links to prescriptions haven鈥檛 been made as clear, but the overdose crisis prompted the health minister to call a state of emergency in 2016 and overdose deaths have yet to slow down in 2017.

With no choice but to recognize the problem, the 2017 Canadian Guideline for Opioid Therapy and Chronic Noncancer Pain was released May 8, calling on doctors who treat people with chronic pain to restrict the prescribing of opioid drugs like Percocet, OxyContin, Dilaudid and morphine.

Their first line of action is now to be prescribing non-drug treatments and non-opioid drugs before turning to a prescription for opioids. They say that opioids should only be prescribed after other treatments are tried and only after other treatments are given a fair trial.

Doctors are also dissuaded from prescribing opioids to patients with a prior history of alcohol or drug abuse or active mental health disorder.

The recommendations also address the escalating needs of opioid users, establishing a maximum dose of 50 to 90 mg a day.

Gervais said some of these methods may have helped when he was initially dealing with pain, but he鈥檚 concerned about what happens to those who have already developed an addiction being put on a prescription cap.

Increasing tolerance requires an ever-increasing dose of drugs and once tolerance has been built, that鈥檚 when things get complicated.

鈥淲hen government initially decided they wanted to get everyone off of it, people started struggling to find doctors to help,鈥� he said, of a mandate that predated the new round of recommendations.

鈥淚 was told I鈥檇 just have to deal with it and find other ways to deal with the pain. I wasn鈥檛 given an answer on what that would be.鈥�

The sudden change in tack caused many to go to the streets to meet their needs.

Gervais wasn鈥檛 much better off. The doctor who had long treated him cut him off, but he said he was lucky to find another who picked up the prescription to ensure that Gervais would have safe access to medication.

Then he took another course of action.

To address what鈥檚 become a well-established addiction, Gervais decided to do a quick detox and then get prescribed Suboxone, a drug that blocks the effects of opioids.

鈥淭his new program in Victoria called the rapid detox opiate withdrawal is a brutal program but it gets you off quick and gets you going back to your life,鈥� said Gervais.

鈥淚 want to just strongly, strongly say that if you are going to have surgery or if you have pain in any way and you have an option to start on opiates or not鈥攄on鈥檛. Trust me when I say the physical pain you will be masking is nothing in comparison to the life and years you will lose from starting on that medication.鈥�

Being on Suboxone, he said, isn鈥檛 exactly freedom, but it鈥檚 a step in the right direction and a step he hopes more opioid addicts take, while more of the community learn about what鈥檚 created the issues at hand.

鈥淚t makes me so angry,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 see a lot of people being blamed for being addicts who really didn鈥檛 understand what they were getting into to begin with.鈥�