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Youth opioid use is growing in Canada, as are associated emergency division visits and deaths, but governments usually are not offering ample help to handle this public well being disaster, argue the authors of a CMAJ (Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal) editorial.
“If this crisis is not properly addressed now, Canada’s health systems will play a part in perpetuating the opioid crisis for decades to come,” write Dr. Shannon Charlebois, medical editor, CMAJ, and Dr. Shawn Kelly, a pediatrician and addictions drugs specialist, CHEO and the College of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario.
In Ontario, college students’ use of prescription opioid ache relievers for nonmedical causes elevated considerably from 12.7% in 2021 to 21.8% in 2023.
College students in youthful grades (7 to 9) have been extra more likely to report use than older highschool college students (grades 10 to 12). Youth aged 15 to 24 made up 9% of emergency division visits in Ontario for opioid use, and opioid-related deaths elevated 369.2% from 2.6 to 12.2 per 100,000 inhabitants from 2013 to 2021.
Paradoxically, youth wrestle to entry opioid agonist remedy, with proof exhibiting that fewer prescriptions are written whilst the necessity will increase. Different efficient remedies, corresponding to psychological remedy and substance use dysfunction packages, are sparse, have lengthy waitlists, and are sometimes privately funded, making them inaccessible to these most in danger.
“Health systems’ inaction and lack of investment to provide evidence-based addictions services for youth is inexcusable, as the opioid crisis involves this population. Physicians who treat youth need support to be able to care for their patients with OUD [opioid use disorder]. Anything less represents complicity in the next decade of preventable deaths,” they conclude.
Extra data:
Canada’s youth are a part of the opioid disaster and want therapy, Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal (2025). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.251682
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Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal
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Is Canada failing the rising numbers of youth who use opioids? (2025, October 27)
retrieved 27 October 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-10-canada-youth-opioids.html
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