By Justin Dionne

City officially endorses Community Opioid Response Plan

Feb 13, 2019 | 4:30 AM

The Community Opioid Response Plan has been officially endorsed by City Council.

The plan was developed through the collaboration of a list of different community stakeholders which include law enforcement, health care, and not-for-profit organizations.

Mayor Bill Given says the plan involves identifying where stakeholders can contribute to assisting the community with the opioid crisis.

“The Community Opioid Response Plan is really intended to be a document that is for different sectors of our community to consider what role they might play in addressing the opioid crisis that has been plaguing Alberta and Grande Prairie,” says Given. “The intent is not for the City of Grande Prairie to own the plan or be the entity that is in charge of doing all the actions in it, because certainly, it’s acknowledged that many of the actions are outside of the control of the City.”

The strategy includes four pillars which represent prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery and policing. Those four pillars are going to be looked at simultaneously in order to address how opioids are affecting the community and what can be done about it.

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“The plan was developed with the collaboration of a number of different community stakeholders ranging from health care to law enforcement, to addictions, to educators, to the business sector and not-for-profits. It really is comprehensive. And it is also intended to be almost a snapshot in time saying ‘these are the things that our community needs to do now, and there will likely be things that our community will need to do in the future.’”

Given adds the next step for the plan is distributing it to the community and stakeholders. He says we can expect to see it on the city’s website late this week.

In 2018, 523 Albertans lost their lives to accidental opioid poisoning, with an average of two deaths per day.