To the Editor In their recent article, Nguyen et al1 provided a timely investigation into opioid-related health outcomes associated with British Columbia鈥檚 Prescribed Safer Supply policy. We identified important limitations to this analysis of population-level government data warranting further discussion.
First, the authors1 defined the study outcomes of hospitalizations and deaths if they involved poisoning from an opioid, regardless of the source of the opioid. This means that opioid-related hospitalizations and deaths caused by drugs from the unregulated supply were combined with hospitalizations and deaths involving opioids acquired from prescribed safer supply. Consequently, we are unable to distinguish if these outcomes are explained by prescribed safer supply policies or the harm these policies are meant to address: ongoing contamination of the unregulated opioid supply.