Health · Healthcare & Policy · 2 hrs ago
Ontario regulator approves tighter rules for safer-supply prescriptions
Ontario’s medical regulator approved new rules for safer-supply prescriptions on Tuesday.
Safer supply gives people at high risk of overdose prescription drugs as an alternative to illicit opioids, including fentanyl.
Doctors will have to prescribe these drugs alongside opioid addiction treatment, such as methadone or Suboxone.
Patients will also have to take the safer-supply medication in front of health-care professionals instead of taking pills home.
The regulator says the changes aim to reduce prescription opioids reaching the streets, although it has no data showing how much comes from these prescriptions.
Some patients may face access problems, especially people in rural areas or those who work, and one board member called for exemptions.
The regulator will monitor the rules and may adjust them, and it dropped a previously considered eight-week prescribing limit.
Ontario’s medical regulator approved tighter rules for doctors prescribing safer-supply drugs.
Prescriptions must be paired with opioid agonist therapy, and patients must take the safer-supply drugs in front of health-care professionals.
The regulator dropped a proposed eight-week limit on prescribing the drugs.
The changes aim to reduce diversion of prescription opioids to the illegal drug market.
The regulator said it will monitor the changes and may adjust them later.
- Who
- The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario approved the changes.
- What
- Doctors must prescribe safer-supply drugs alongside opioid agonist therapy, and patients must take the drugs in front of health-care professionals.
- When
- Tuesday; the article was published on October 13, 2026.
- Where
- Ontario.
- Why
- The regulator says the changes aim to reduce the diversion of opioids to the streets and protect public safety.
College leadership
Peter Wiesner
Policy impact
College leadership
The college’s board chair said the changes are intended to prevent diversion while ensuring patients who need safer supply take opioid agonist therapy.
Peter Wiesner
Wiesner said the policy may not work for everyone and called for exemptions for patients who cannot take opioid agonist therapy.
Access
College leadership
The college approved requiring patients to take safer-supply drugs in front of health-care professionals.
Peter Wiesner
Wiesner said the rule could disproportionately affect rural patients far from pharmacies and employed patients who may struggle to attend daily.
This story does not have a timeline yet.
- Regulator
- College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario
- Required treatment
- Safer-supply prescriptions must be paired with opioid agonist therapy
- Medication administration
- Patients must take the drugs in front of health-care professionals
- Proposed time limit
- The college dropped a previously considered eight-week prescribing limit
- Patient data
- More than 87 per cent of safer-supply patients are also on opioid agonist therapy, according to information cited by Wiesner
What people are saying
We are just here to protect the public and we’re here to ensure that the public is safe
But what about the 12 per cent that it doesn’t work for?
Sources
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