this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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The land that fentanyl forgot - Why are overdose deaths in Europe a fraction of those seen in North America? (www.theglobeandmail.com)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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This is absolutely excellent journalism 👏. The kind of journalism that many Canadian newsroom struggle to do because they lack resources. Please support it if you can.

Summary

  1. North American doctors prescribe a huge amount of opioid painkiller pills.

  2. Canada is a country deeply influenced by the United States. Health Canada followed the US FDA when most European countries were extremely cautious. Canadian Medical Schools allowed US drug companies to spread questionable content.

  3. The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world that allow prescription drugs to be advertised on TV. The Sackler family spent $200-million annually marketing Oxycontin opioids. Many Canadians regularly watch american TV channels and painkiller ads are hard to miss.

  4. The crisis spilled from inside doctor’s offices to city streets as drug dealers capitalized on a new wave of clients. Then came the second trigger: the shift from heroin to fentanyl in the mid-2010s.

  5. Europe has a warning system that tracks the emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS). They are identified through laboratory testing of seizures by law enforcement. Member states are alerted as soon as possible, allowing them to respond to the threat.

  6. It's easier to get rehab treatment in Europe. Most rehab facilities in Canada are privately owned.

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[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 19 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I'd summarize the article differently:

  1. Europe has established pathways for heroin. Those weren't supplanted by fentanyl.

  2. European docs are less likely to prescribe painkillers (seems pretty wild to refer to a few dozen healthcare systems like this, but ok). More supports are available to people suffering pain.

  3. Europeans were more skeptical of Oxycontin overall and docs were less likely to prescribe it.

  4. European countries have more effective law enforcement, who arrest and prosecute people more effectively, but "Studies have shown that criminal penalties for drug use have been ineffective in reducing substance reliance or overdose deaths".

  5. European countries offer more treatment options for people trying to end their addictions.

  6. Harm reduction sites in Europe are better integrated into the surrounding community: He pointed to countries like Spain and the Netherlands, where local stakeholders – such as police, health authorities and neighbourhood groups – work together to integrate drug consumption spaces into communities. These services, which he noted are also adequately funded, then become “part of the city fabric.”

Again, Europe is a bunch of countries. This article seems to paint with a broad brush, but my takeaway is that European countries generally have more comprehensive healthcare, and didn't jump on the oxy bandwagon. And they did harm reduction better.

I suspect that existing drug distribution networks staying on heroin is pretty significant too, but the article doesn't give numbers.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 days ago

I'd add to that (as a European living in Canada) that overall Europe is way more pragmatic than the Americas.

In the Americas (especially the US) the justice system is geared towards punishment whereas in Europe it's more geared towards rehabilitation.

Similarly, it is extremely unhelpful to jail drug addicts, especially in the US where they come in as a drug addicts and go out of prison a criminal.

I know I'm painting a very broad brush here but I think the Americas are doing it wrong. Focus on the underlying reasons why people are using, solve those issues. Focus on current addicts and give them well working publicly funded places where they can kick their addictions. Focus on other pragmatic solutions and stop seeing everything as a financial opportunity for some company (Hello USA!)

None of those things will even happen in the US, the anti pragmatist country, but this would work well for Canada (already halfway in that direction) and Mexico

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

The thing about Europe is that, even with the diversity of geography, languages, cultures, and histories the collection we know as “Europe” still finds itself doing better than the US by most metrics.

They generally have more rights and protections, better healthcare(easy), and often times populations that are more willing to get out and fight back when they need to(despite a lack of guns that’s wild, huh?). They also have the EU to help with a lot of that which also has the implication that countries who find that sort of thing important also care about the stuff that the EU does.

And, of course, if we didn’t say “Europe” we’d have to list all the countries that blow the US out of the water on pretty much any positive metric and their fragile little egos couldn’t take it(plus it would take forever).