Health Canada is allowing a so-called antidote for drug overdoses to bypass a lengthy review process in order to permit “immediate access”.

Naloxone, also known by its trade name Narcan, is a drug used to counter the effects of opioids such as heroin and fentantyl. When someone experiences an overdose and loses consciousness, they can be administered naloxone and revived.

An injectable form has long been available in Canada. But as the Straight reported last January, frontline health-care workers have called for a nasal form of the drug that is available in the United States.

At the time, a Health Canada spokesperson told the Straight that an intranasal form of naloxone would be considered a “major change in formulation” from the injectable type, and would therefore be required to go through a full Health Canada review, a process that, in January, had not even been initiated.

Now, Health Canada has said that in response to rising numbers of drug-overdose deaths recorded across the country, nasal-spray naloxone can bypass that review process.

“As an emergency public health measure in response to the current opioid crisis, the Minister of Health has signed an Interim Order to temporarily allow naloxone in nasal spray form to be imported from the U.S. and sold in Canada,” reads a July 6 media release.

“Health Canada received an application for a nasal version of naloxone in May 2016, and is currently conducting an expedited review for authorization in Canada. The Interim Order allows the product, which has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to be temporarily sold in Canada.”

Health minister Jane Philpott was quoted there stressing that the unusual course of action was prompted by the urgency of the situation at hand.

"The number of opioid overdoses in Canada is nothing short of a public health crisis,” she said. “First responders, police and family members need immediate access to formats of naloxone that are easy to use so that needless deaths can be prevented.  Extraordinary measures are required to address this crisis, so I have asked my department to conduct an expedited review of nasal naloxone for sale in Canada, and to enact this temporary measure that allows access to a product from the US while our review is underway."

In June, the province’s chief coroner revealed that so many people have died of overdoses in B.C. this year that drugs are now killing more people than automobile accidents.

“Last year, there were 300 deaths in motor-vehicle incidents, and this year, as the minister said, we’ve had 308 deaths already from illicit-drug overdoses,” Lisa LaPointe explained at a press conference in Vancouver. “If this trend were to continue, we’d be looking at about 750 deaths this year. So it’s hugely significant. The number of people dying from illicit-drug overdoses is higher than any other unnatural category.”

More than half of those deaths are attributed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can produce effects similar to heroin but which is roughly 10 times more toxic.

In 2015, there were 484 drug-overdose deaths in B.C. That was up from 364 in 2014, 331 in 2013, and 273 in 2012, according to the B.C. Coroners Service.

Health Canada’s decision will likely facilitate naloxone’s distribution among groups that in the past have expressed reluctance to equip their members with needles. For example, last January, Vancouver police constable Brian Montague told the Straight the force did have concerns.

“We would revisit the thought of having some of our officers trained to carry it if a nasal form was made available here in Canada,” Montague said.