Nearly 1 in 4 federal inmates are receiving treatment for opioid addiction

The opioid crisis is putting pressure on Canada’s federal prisons, as new data shows that nearly one in four inmates are receiving opioid agonist treatment like methadone or suboxone.

This comes from a recently answered order paper question on how many federal inmates are receiving that treatment and how many are using the prison needle exchange program.

In the response to B.C. Conservative MP Frank Caputo, Ontario Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell wrote that as of Feb. 4, 2024, 3,129 of the 13,619 inmates in federal prisons were receiving the treatment, or 23 per cent. Of those on opioid agonist treatment, 45 were involved in the prison needle exchange program.

There’s been a steady increase in the number of inmates receiving opioid agonist treatment since Correctional Service Canada (CSC) began to really see the growth of the opioid epidemic in 2016. In December 2016, nine per cent of inmates were getting opioid agonist treatment, climbing to 15 per cent at the end of 2021.

“When the opioid overdose epidemic essentially started in 2016, 2017, both the health authorities, communities, prison services were quite challenged with the rapid increase,” said Dr. Nader Sharifi, CSC’s opioid use disorder medical advisor, in an interview with Global News.

“We did have a waitlist that was just over 400 a couple of years ago. And we’ve managed, with some very hard work and caring staff, to reduce that number to just under 100, which is basically a rolling waitlist. It’s people who come in and need to go on opioid agonist treatment. So, we’ve managed to sort of keep pace at this point.”

CSC says opioid agonist treatment is complemented by additional treatments to help inmates with addictions including counselling and other mental health