A class action lawsuit has been filed against the province of British Columbia, along with its college of pharmacists and a drug company on behalf of those undergoing methadone treatment for drug use who say their medication was switched to Methadose, a less effective option.
Lead plaintiff, Laura Shaver, says that she and others undergoing treatment for heroin and opioid addictions were switched to the less effective medication as part of cost-cutting measures by the government. However, the medication, Methadose, is allegedly less effective at treating withdrawal symptoms, and those in treatment were not given any other choice.
“It felt like death,” Laura told Globe and Mail reporters. “I felt like I had no power. I didn’t know whose body I was in, whose mind was thinking. It had been so long since I felt any withdrawal symptoms that it was so scary. To me, withdrawal means death. I would rather be dead than go through withdrawal, in all seriousness.”
According to the Globe and Mail, regular methadone treatments keep withdrawal symptoms at bay for approximately a day. Methadose only works for between 12 and 16 hours, states the report citing studies that found use of the drug led to an increase in street drug use and related health and other problems.
“I hadn’t used heroin in four years or something,” Laura told the National Post. “Within six days I was a raging injection junkie again. The things I went through, the sweats, the shakes. I don’t even know where to start.”
Laura went on to tell reporters that, after her treatment was switched from methadone to Methadose, she turned to illegal drugs to deal with her withdrawal symptoms within a week. She says that, as a result of her relapse and continued treatment with Methadose, she overdosed eight times.
According to the National Post, the Health Ministry of B.C. made the switch to Methadose in 2014. Methadose is made by Mallinckrodt Canada, ULC, also a defendant in the Methadose class action lawsuit.
The Globe and Mail reports that the Health Ministry and colleges of pharmacists, physicians, and surgeons recommended Methadose because it doesn’t need to be mixed and refrigerated like regular methadone. Methadone is a white powder that is diluted using an orange flavoured juice, while Methadose is a cherry flavoured liquid. The groups contended Methadose was safer because it did not require users to mix the treatment on their own and would lead to more consistent results.
The complaint accuses the Health Ministry and college of pharmacists of failing to acknowledge the risks of the new, cheaper drug.
“They knew within months of this forced change that it wasn’t working, that it was causing instant problems,” Jason Gratl told Globe and News reporters. “There were catastrophic consequences of overdose and death, [and] an unbelievably extreme overdose epidemic with thousands of people dying.”
Compounding the problem was the lack of access to the original methadone treatment for addiction, says the complaint.
“The defendants knew or ought to have known that restricting patient access to compounded methadone and granting Mallinckrodt the right to distribute Methadose as the exclusive (therapy) medication in British Columbia could result in relapse and harms associated with relapse,” contends the proposed Methadose class action lawsuit.
In fact, last year the Health Ministry of B.C. reportedly made a change to its treatment programs, allowing patients to access another version of methadone in the event that Methadose was not effective. The Globe and Mail reports that this change came only after years of lobbying by advocacy groups. However, the lawyer representing the plaintiff and proposed Class Members says that the additional medication is not enough, and access to the original medication should be permitted for those in treatment programs.
“Numerous individuals and organizations have come forward to try to persuade the province and the college of pharmacists to restore access to compounded methadone,” Gratl told reporters.
Opioid and heroin addictions have ravaged the province, states the class action lawsuit, pointing out that B.C. has experienced 5,000 overdose deaths since 2013. The complaint argues that B.C.’s switch to the less effective Methadose treatment has been a cause of many more overdose deaths.
The proposed Methadose class action lawsuit seeks to represent those undergoing the reformulated methadone treatment in British Columbia arguing that those who relapsed on the program should be given compensation for the province’s failure to acknowledge the risks of the switch.
Were you or a loved one impacted by British Columbia’s switch to Methadose? Tell us your story in the comment section below!
The lead plaintiff and proposed Class Members are represented by Jason Gratl.
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10 thoughts onMethadose Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against B.C. After Medication Switch
My first encounter with methadone came from a new doctor in a new town I had to move to because my ex-husband left me in pain and destitute after he drove us into a 5 vehicle car accident. I had been on pain medication from the doctor I had for 20 years on the town I was in. We tried several times to wean me down and off the opioids I tried but every time I got down and off the pain from the car accident always came back. He tried so hard to help me and always was on the look out for anything going wrong with me and the medications he prescribed. I never had a problem weaning down and then going off my medications when my husband left me. After 15 years of the battle with me and the pain my doctor had ordered another CT Scan for me. I remember getting on the scanner and saying to the operators, “Please for God’s sake find where this pain is coming from because I am at the end of my rope.” A few days later my doctor’s receptionist called me with an appointment for me. I got to the appointment and was waiting in the treatment room when when he came in and slapped my file on the desk and said “We found it. You have Piriformis Syndrome!” I had never heard of this and he tried to describe it to me but suggested I go to see another specialized doctor in geriatric pain. I was not in her age bracket for people with pain but because I had suffered for so long she said she would see me. Unfortunately she was offered a job in the USA and was leaving and my ex left me without means to get any help for me. Now that I had a diagnosis I began researching it on the internet. I found a YouTube video from a young man showing what the Piriformis muscle was, where it was in the body and gave several mild stretching exercising which I followed diligently and within 3 days I was out of pain. It was nothing short of a miracle. I found an apartment in my new town and was moving in. The people who said they would help me move did not show so I decided since I was out of pain to begin moving the boxes and things for myself. With the first box I lifted I felt a vertebrae in my neck snap. I waited, while pampering myself, to go to the hospital emergency the next morning. I saw a doctor and he checked me out giving me a script for an anti-inflammatory and a note for a chiropractor he said was a friend of his and walked away. I made an appointment but during the appointment I had to stop him as he was really rough with me and I felt he was doing more damage than good. On the way home as I was driving back to my apartment I turned my head to look to the right for traffic and I heard and felt a hard crunch in the C6 vertebrae area and had to pull off the road. I was not sure I could even drive and had no cell phone to call anyone. I sat there crying just heartbroken at the situation I was. I had been a highly active person but all the stress my abusive narcissistic husband had put me through for 27 years and then stole everything I had, no one was helping me even though they said they would and now I was back in pain in my neck and my freedom from pain I worked so hard for plus ensuring I was not addicted and got off all opioids here I was knowing I would need something for the pain I was in and I did not yet have a doctor in this town. I felt like I was being attacked by some evil forces and had no resources or knowledge to know what to do. My son was in the same town I was now in but he was not helping me but his girlfriend gave me the name of her doctor and said to try her. I went to the first “meet and greet” appointment and followed it up with more appointments to address the pain in my neck. She suggested I go to the methadone clinic in this town and when I told her I was not a drug addict she told me that they were now treating acute chronic pain patients with methadone and followed it up with a statement I will never forget. She said ,”If you do not go on it then you will get no opioids from me either. You get methadone from the clinic or you get nothing,” It shocked me. Why was she treating me like this. I had no choice. I could not get a different doctor and every attempt I made to get help I was met with attitudes that screamed “They think I am a drug addict!!!” So I went to the methadone clinic with a sheet of paper with about 20 questions about methadone I needed answers to. After many years of researching and being treated as if I was a drug addict I realized I had been set up to become addicted to methadone so they always had a paying patient with me. That clinic’s doctor had set up a payment plan where if you were a addict you had to pay $65.00 for every appointment you had with the clinic and if you were a pain patient you had to pay $30.00. They also sold $150.00 for a certificate to buy marijuana from the marijuana grow operation the BC government had in Nanaimo, BC. When I was with my husband I developed severe anxiety and panic attacks from the severe verbal, physical and mental abuse from my husband. Since I was now away from him those things also subsided and I was no longer on any medications for that. However with my very first consumption of methadone I developed such severe anxiety I almost ran to the hospital in what they said was an acute panic panic attack. They treated me for that and I went home. With my next dosage the same thing happened. Severe panic attack and with every dose I now had panic attacks every day but there were other things that my body was now suffering. The next thing was that what were perfectly normal teeth they began just crumbling out of my mouth. In just a few months I lost all my teeth and had to spend several thousand dollars to find anyone who would help me with this. I had several spells of just suddenly being drenching wet over my body. These came with anxiety as well. I tried 3 times to wean of the methadone. The first time was a disaster because the doctor I had at the clinic weaned me off of the high dosage I was on in just 6 weeks. I did wean down and initially had no trouble but one night I was hit with something I was not familiar with and it hit me HARD. I called an ambulance to get me to the hospital. After they treated me and everything calmed down the doctor at the emergency ward told me the clinic doctor never should have taken me off the methadone so quickly because I had worked down being weaned off the methadone in the 6 week period and the next month I took no opioids and was now drug free again. Then a month went by and the emergency department doctor told me what I was experiencing was Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) and gave me the phone number of the Detox Clinic in Nanaimo and suggested I call them and ask them what I should now do. They told me the clinic doctor most likely gave me a 6 week detox script because he would have known that a person on methadone can not be taken off of it they way he did to me. I tried 2 more times to wean off that drug and told all the doctors involved if they do not get me off the drug THEY put me then it was going to kill me. During the 3rd try to get off methadone the doctor who was the owner of the clinic was caught selling prescriptions “out the back door” as it is called and was told to either face charges or have his doctor license revoked. He turned in his license and a new doctor began taking over the clinic. It was now 3 years since I entered that clinic and in those 3 years I wrote anyone and everyone who would listen to me. I even wrote to the Department responsible for the BC and Canadian Health Departments and I told them what I am telling now. In the meantime I began to work with the new clinic doctor telling her my experiences with drugs and alcohol. It was that I never drank or did street drugs through out my entire life because I have an extremely sensitive body with many allergies and had to be careful of what I subjected my body to. Also I grew up watching my elder sister drink herself to the point she would be falling down drunk at school functions and she was doubly cruel once she was drunk. Then I watched my younger brother by age 13/14 taking multiple prescriptions the doctors were giving him and I tried to tell our father about the fears I now had that my brother would become a drug addict. Instead of dealing with this he threatened to “beat me up” if he heard I was spreading that around about his son!!!! I watched him get into situation after situation growing up and he was now drinking as well. I watched my brother and sister become alcoholics and drug addicts and vowed I would never go down that route and I never did. Instead I followed my dream regarding a career choice I had and by 1976 I became a Police Officer for the police department in the city I was living in at that time. Keeping myself healthy and active and now allowing drugs or alcohol in my home was my first priority. With the new doctor who was willing to believe me and we began working together to get me down and off methadone and I began having hope. We finally got me down far enough that was I taken off methadone and put of Kadian. That change took place sometime in 2015. I am STILL on Kadian but I am now stuck at 190mgs per day. Any failure to take this dosage ends up with horrific and terrifying symptoms. Once I had a UTI that went undiagnosed and went blank for 4 days. I was hospitalized for 5 days and when I “came to” I could remember the past 4 days nor anything I did or said or how I got to the hospital. When I left the hospital and came home I was waiting to get an appointment to get my script for the Kadian. I was not aware that they never gave me my prescription of Kadian the entire time I was in the hospitable. While at home I began having having severe Restless Leg Syndrome but this was far worse than I had ever experienced. I began not having control over my legs and began to have severe leg and body jerks plus I was terrified because I did not know what was happening to me. I was having symptoms as if I was in a Grand Mal Seizure but it was not a seizure. Mentally I could still scream for help which a friend at my home heard and he picked me up and drove me to the hospital. Since I had never had this happen before I KNEW it had to be connected to the medication (Kadian) I was on. I told the doctor between these severe seizure-like jerks it must be the Kadian. Give me 100mgs of Kadian and some Ativan and this will stop. He decided to trust me and did what I said and in just a few minutes everything stopped and I was fine again. It was all because my family doctor decided to not give me the Kadian when I was in the hospital and in a state of being “no where” in my brain and she deliberately did not give the the Kadian I had been on but was still weaning down from. That was in 2024. I am off methadone and since 2015 I have been trying to get off the Kadian as well but every time I go down on the Kadian something happens to me and they stop it by giving me the Kadian again. I want to be involved with this Class Action Lawsuit. Will someone tell me where I go to have my name added to the list!!!! Ever since I came to this town and got involved with these doctors that were supposed to help me and instead I feel like they have been experimenting with my life and I will soon die. Now I am 73 years old and I also have Stage 3 Non-Alcoholic Cirrhosis of the liver. How fair is that!! I have LOTS more I can contribute to this Lawsuit!!!
This is proof that many Drs are misusing the methadone Programe to simply create lifelong addicts for the phama industry! There is absolutly NO qualification that would make methadone a substite for marijauna. Even if ur using pot for pain, the brain receptors are differnet. The intent of methadone is to give some pain relief while also blocking the ability to get high from double dosing or using other naracotics that are similar. I know people who where using crack, methamphetmine (smokable speed) etc, and yet put on methadone! increadible…the lies tlod about the Metadone mainteneince program will make you a life long prisoner. There is ZERO accountability betwen the Drs, the Collage of Pharmasists,the collage of Physician and helath Canada…they all pass the buck and take NO accounatbilty for the failures. Many have adverse reaction to the preservative in the methadose and NoN-compounded methadone…the suffering, hives, inabilty to swallow and eat, extreem dry mouth that is rottiing teeth and causing SEVER health probelms, the punding headaches, high blood preasure and rapid heart beat were NEVER xperienced with the Compounded Methadone..there are NO compuonding pharmacies in Ontario approved to sell, ship, distrubute etc methadone! The collage of Pharmas excuse? “well. if they wanted to get approval they could”…well, they dont. and so it effectively IMPOSSIBLE to retyrn to to what ahs worked succcfully for 25 yeqrs ….the other option? your local pharma y that Is approved to sell methadone on the Maintenanave program, must spend aboyt 30,000 dollars to make a compounding vente,ation system, safe room, be trained and have air quality etc checked for minute contamination….22 years and there has NEVER been any problme with a pharmacots mixing compounded methadon poweder….OR allow methadone PIlLs in Canada! They are not allowed , but are in the USA….no preservative would be required….This is about BIg PHARMA and healh Canada and Ontario KiLLING PEOPLE
Sister was medicated with methadone, switched to Methadose. Developed delusions and began living in a delusional world. 8 hospitals wrote in file medicated to intoxication, stroke, aneurysm possible schitzophrenia. No one would tell parents what was wrong.
Pharmacist sent fax sister missed 10 days of Methadone requesting the same dose.
Picked up night of December 28. She took METHADOSE, GIVEN FOUND
NECROTIC THE NEXT DAY.
DEAD AT AGE 41.
ALL DUE TO SLIP AND FALL.
Hi, I would like to be added to this class action. I had a dramatic reduction in potassium when I was switched to methadose from the orange version of it. I went into jaundice, was hospitalized for 2 weeks, and experienced some of the worst pain ive ever experienced.
Methadose patient for a number of years- it stripped my body of potassium and I died and was revived 15 times in 2019-
Wow! I had something VERY similar happen to me in 2019 as well; and upon discharge from the hospital (after going jaundice and turning yellow :x), I was told that they had no diagnosis or reason they could give me for why it had happened.
&wouldn’t ya know, t’was NON-OTHA then the night before methadosing, and all through the shack…
Not a creature was stirring, to even find crack….
lol
what LAURA SHAVER has said is 100% correct!I was on methadone for years starting way back in 2000 in ONTARIO.I use to have to travel to HAMILTON and TORONTO until my city got a clinic.I to was switched to METHADOSE and its nowhere even close to the original formula of METHADONE.I just recently got switched back to METHADONE.The differance is night and day and they KNOW that but because we are just “DRUG ADDICTS” they(GOVERNMENT) do not care! Personally I think unless youve walked a day in a recovering addicts shoes than you should NOT speak on these issues.Alls I wanted was to live pain free.I cant get a proper diagnosis for the cause of my pain because DOCTORS simply DO NOT want to give proper medications.I recently went for HOMONE therapy because my testosterone was extremely low,weeks after the shot I broke out in 2 AUTO IMMUNE diseases called PSORIASIS and PALMOPLANTER PUSTULOSIS! In my opinion theres the cause of my ORIGINAL PAIN! PSORIATIC ARTHRITIS! The pain often effects the patient before the skin lesions appear and DOCTORS wont diagnose that because then they would have to PRESCRIBE pain medication! Anyways Im hoping theres also a LAWSUIT in ONTARIO because what we HUMANS have to go through should be CRIMINAL! The judging and the stigmas are BRUTAL! Whats the differance between ONTARIO and BRITISH COLUMBIA,we are ALL CANADIAN.Why should WE be victimized because GOVERNMENT wants to save money?
I was prescribed Methadose through my clinic in Ontario from 2014 until 2018. They are now using Metadol-D for all methadone patients. Are there any class action suits in Ontario regarding Methadose?
I am being switched to methadone and am a chronic pain patient, I’ve never had failed screen or improper count. I express fear of being switched to this drug due to risk. However was not heard. Do I qualify?
I went to Province for assistance with Marijuana Costs…
they suggested I use Methadose instead of Marijuana…
and would be happy to help with that… but not the Prescribed Marijuana…
does this allow to join suit?