The opioid crisis has been felt throughout B.C. for decades with policymakers, advocates and researchers looking for new ways to help those with opioid dependency or opioid use disorder (OUD).
Two benchmark treatments exist: methadone and buprenorphine, both synthetic opiate derivatives. These treatments come with high risks of dependence and therefore trade one addiction for another, according to a 2022 study on OUD by Jones, G., Ricard, J.A., Lipson, J. et al.
Western biomedicine is seeing a renaissance in the use of psychedelics and psychedelic-assisted therapy to lower one’s risk of addiction.
Pamela Kryskow, a founding board member of the Psychedelic Association of Canada, medical lead of the Roots To Thrive Program and a family physician, sees psychedelic-assisted therapy as an opportunity for deeper healing.
“If you focus on the trauma, and healing the trauma, the addiction goes away. So, addiction is not to be treated. It is a symptom of trauma. And if we focus on that, and stop treating addicts like the addiction is the problem, we’re going to be in so much better service to our patients, our clients and society,” she said.
