Increasing Awareness and Understanding of Problematic Substance Use Reducing Alcohol-Related Harms Addressing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Preventing the Problematic Use of Pharmaceuticals Addressing Enforcement Issues Sustaining Workforce Development Implementing a National Research Agenda and Facilitating Knowledge Transfer Improving the quality, accessibility and range of options to treat harmful substance use including substance use disorders (Treatment) Modernizing Legislative, Regulatory and Policy Frameworks Focusing on Children and Youth Reaching Out to Canada’s North Supporting First Nations, Inuit and Métis People in Addressing Their Needs Responding to Offender-Related Issues Raising Public Awareness About Addictions: Creating Momentum for Action National Alcohol Policy Thematic Workshop National Thematic Workshop on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Preventing the Harmful Use of Psychotropic Pharmaceuticals National Thematic Workshop on Enforcement Police and Policing Partners: Supply Management and Demand Reduction Workforce Development Thematic Workshop National Thematic Workshop on Research National Thematic Workshop on Improving the Quality, Accessibility, and Range of Options to Treat Harmful Substance Use Including Substance Use Disorders (Treatment) National Thematic Workshop on Corrections National Symposium on Language

Preventing the Problematic Use of Pharmaceuticals

The problematic use of pharmaceutical products is an issue of concern across Canada.  The issue is defined as a deliberate, excessive or illegal use and abuse of pharmaceutical drugs, which has product-specific regional differences.  A key challenge is to balance the need to make pharmaceutical products available for therapeutic use, while minimizing the risk of diversion for non-medical use, as well as problematic use within a therapeutic context. There is a need for a better understanding of the issue through surveys and research on the prevalence, as well as the nature and causes of the problematic use of pharmaceuticals.

Preventing the problematic use of pharmaceuticals requires coordinated action between governments, health care professionals, stakeholders, the criminal justice system, industry and provincial licensing authorities. Current thinking suggests that this might best be achieved by:  

• educating health care professionals and the public about the potential harms associated with the problematic use of pharmaceuticals and at the same time, encouraging safer use of psychoactive medications in order to maximize benefits while minimizing harms; 
• developing a framework for systematically reporting the prevalence and nature of the problematic use of prescription drugs in Canada;  
• monitoring prescription records to detect potentially problematic patterns of prescribing;  
• developing product formulation strategies to reduce the risk of problematic use, (for example, developing drug delivery systems that are resistant to tampering like crushing or chewing); and
• improving research related specifically to treatment of the problematic use of pharmaceuticals. 

Update 

On March 21-22, 2006, Health Canada hosted a multi-sectoral thematic workshop Preventing the Harmful Use of Psychotropic Pharmaceuticals to identify: 

• issues of national concern related to the problematic use of psychotropic pharmaceuticals that could  be addressed through a collaborative approach
• possible strategies, approaches and mechanisms (such as research, policy, treatment, prevention, enforcement, etc.) that could be used to address the most significant issues;
• who could/should lead the strategies or champion the approaches so as to make progress on these issues. 

Discussions are ongoing on how to approach the development of an appropriate national strategy to address this priority issue.  If your organization has an interest in exploring this issue further contact the Secretariat.