Giving Compass' Take:

• The author discusses the urgency for philanthropists to address Canada's opioid crisis and how donations can bolster grassroots prevention efforts. 

 How can philanthropists work to reduce the stigma surrounding the opioid crisis so that organizations can obtain sufficient funding?

• Read more about what philanthropists can do to support strategies tackling the opioid crisis. 


According to the most recent statistics from the B.C. Coroners Service, 128 people succumbed to illicit-drug overdoses in September. More than 100 overdose deaths a month has become the new normal.

Dr. Evan Wood, executive director of the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU), says a great deal more must be done nationally to promote awareness of evidence-based addiction care.

He credited Goldcorp Inc. for stepping up with a $3-million donation to the St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation and the UBC Division of AIDS that funded the BCCSU Addiction Medicine Fellowship. With this—and through the generosity of other donors aligned with the Vancouver Foundation—87 fellows have graduated through a one-year fellowship program. Beyond that, more than 300 trainees, mostly medical students, have also been trained in addiction medicine for shorter periods.

He said that, traditionally, addiction care was “an unwanted stepchild of the health-care system”, in part due to the stigma attached to people who use drugs. According to Wood, this societal stigma has also existed within health care because of a lack of adequately trained providers.

This, in turn, has manifested itself in far less than optimal care for people who’ve also been criminalized because of their disease.

Ann Barnum, senior program officer overseeing substance-use disorders for the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, wrote a commentary headlined “What Foundations Can Do to Fight the Opiate Epidemic”.   She suggested that foundations can play a major role in supporting grassroots prevention efforts by funding drug take-back programs and funding unused-medicine disposal units in hospitals and police stations. In addition, she pointed out that foundations can fund needle exchanges and community-based distribution of naloxone, which saves the lives of people who have overdosed.

Read the full article about philanthropy and the opioid crisis by Charlie Smith at The Georgia Straight