Fuelling a crisis: Lack of treatment for opioid use in Canada’s prisons and jails

“The opioid overdose crisis has killed almost 14,000 Canadians since 2016. One flashpoint of this crisis is Canada’s correctional facilities. Opioid-related deaths are increasing among incarcerated people. Post-release, their prospects are even worse: in the two weeks after release, a prisoner’s risk of overdose is more than 50 times higher than in the general population. One in 10 of all overdose deaths is a prisoner released in the past year.”