Addictions
Ottawa “safer supply” clinic criticized by distraught mother
An Ottawa mother, who lost her daughter to addiction, is frustrated by Recovery Care’s failure to help her opioid-addicted son
Masha Krupp has already lost one child to an overdose and fears she could lose another.
In 2020, her 47-year-old daughter Larisa died from methadone toxicity just 12 days into an opioid addiction treatment program. The program is run by Recovery Care, an Ottawa-based harm reduction clinic with five locations across the city, which aims to stabilize drug users and eventually wean them off more potent drugs.
Krupp says she is skeptical about the effectiveness of the support and counseling services that Recovery Care claims to provide and believes the clinic was negligent in her daughter’s case.
On Oct. 22, the Ottawa mother testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, which is studying Canada’s opioid epidemic.
In her testimony, Krupp said her daughter was prescribed 30mg of methadone — 50 per cent more than the recommended induction dose — and was not given an opiate tolerance test before starting the program. Larisa received treatment at the Bells Corners Recovery Care location.
Krupp’s 30-year-old son, whom Canadian Affairs agreed not to name, has been a patient at Recovery Care’s ByWard Market location since 2021, where he receives a combination of methadone and hydromorphone, another prescription drug administered through the treatment program.
“Three years later, my son is still using fentanyl, crack cocaine and methadone, despite being with Dr. [Charles] Breau and with Recovery Care for over three years,” Krupp testified.
“About four weeks ago, I had to call 9-1-1 because he was overdosing,” Krupp told Canadian Affairs in an interview. “This is on the safer supply program … three years in, I should not be calling 9-1-1.”
Open diversion
Founded in 2018, Recovery Care is a partner in the Safer Supply Ottawa initiative. The initiative, which is led by Ottawa Public Health and managed by the nonprofit Pathways to Recovery, provides prescription pharmaceutical opioids to individuals who are at high risk of overdose.
Pathways to Recovery works with a network of service providers throughout the city — including Recovery Care — to administer safer supply.
Krupp says she supports the concept of safer supply, but believes it needs to be administered differently.
“You can’t give addicts 28 pills and say ‘Oh here you go,’” she said in her testimony. “They sell for three dollars a pop on the street,” she said, referring to the practice of some individuals selling their prescribed medications to fund purchases of more intense street drugs like heroin and fentanyl.
Krupp says she sees her son — and other patients of the program — openly divert their prescribed medications outside of the Recovery Care clinic in ByWard Market, where she parks to wait for him.
“[B]ecause there’s no treatment attached to [my son’s safer supply], it’s just the doctor gives him all these pills, he diverts them, gets the drugs he needs, and he’s still an addict,” Krupp said in her testimony.
Donna Sarrazin, chief executive of Recovery Care, told Canadian Affairs that Recovery Care has measures to address diversion, including security cameras and onsite security staff.
“Patients are educated at intake and ongoing that diversion is not permitted and that they could be removed from the program,” she said in an emailed statement.
“Recovery Care works to understand diversion and has continued to progress programs and actions to address the issues. Concerns expressed by the community and our teams are taken seriously,” she said.
Krupp says she has communicated her concerns about her son reselling his prescribed medications to his doctor, Dr. Charles Breau, both in-person and through faxed letters. “I never hear back from the doctor. Never,” she said.
Krupp also said in her testimony that police have spoken to her son about his diversion.
Breau did not respond to inquiries made to his clinical teams at Recovery Care or Montfort Hospital, a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Ottawa.
Sarrazin said Breau is not able to comment on patient or family care.
In Krupp’s view, the safer supply program would be more successful if drug users were required to take prescribed medications under supervision.
“If he was receiving his hydromorphone under witnessed dosage and there was a treatment plan attached to it, I believe it would be successful,” she said.
Dr. Eileen de Villa, the City of Toronto’s medical officer of health, reinforced this point at the Oct. 22 Health Committee meeting. She said Toronto Public Health’s injectable opioid agonist therapy program — which combines observed administration with a treatment plan — has seen “incredible results.”
De Villa shared a case of a pregnant client who entered the program. “She went on to have a successful pregnancy, a healthy baby, has actually successfully completed the treatment, and is now housed and has even gained custody of her other children,” she said.
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‘An affront to me’
Krupp also says Recovery Care fails to deliver on its promise of supporting patients’ mental health needs. Recovery Care’s website says its clinics offer “mental health programs which are essential to every treatment plan.”
Krupp and her son’s father have both requested a clear treatment plan and consistent counselling for their son. But he was started on safer supply after participating in only one virtual counselling session, she says.
She says Recovery Care has only one mental health counselor who services four of Recovery Care’s clinics. “If you’re getting $2-million-plus a year in funding, you should be able to staff each clinic with one on-site counselor five days a week,” she said.
Instead of personalized assistance, her son received “a sheaf of photocopies” offering generic services like Narcotics Anonymous and crisis helplines. “It’s almost an affront to me, as a taxpayer and a mother of an addict,” Krupp said.
Krupp says that, following her testimony to the parliamentary committee, Breau reached out to offer her son a mental health counseling session for the first time.
Sarrazin told Canadian Affairs that patients are encouraged to request counseling at any time. “Currently there is no wait list and appointments can be booked within 1 week,” she said in her emailed statement.
Class actions
Today, Krupp is considering launching a class-action lawsuit against Health Canada and the Government of Canada, challenging both the enactment of safer supply and the loosening of methadone dispensing requirements in 2017. She believes these changes contributed to her daughter’s death in 2020.
She is also considering joining an existing class-action lawsuit in B.C., which alleges Health Canada failed to monitor the distribution of drugs provided through safer supply programs.
The Pathways to Recovery initiative received $9.69-million in funding from Health Canada from July 2020 to March 2025. In June 2023, Health Canada allocated an additional $1.9 million to expand Ottawa’s safer supply program across five sites and improve access to practitioners, mental health support, housing and other services.
“I want to see that money being put to a recovery based treatment, not simply people going in and out and getting their medications and just creating this new sub-layer of addicts,” Krupp said.
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
Subscribe for free to get BTN’s latest news and analysis, or donate to our journalism fund.
From LifeSiteNews
Nearly 64% of American men now believe online pornography should be more difficult to access, with even higher numbers of women saying the same thing.
A new survey has shown that an increasing number of young men want more restrictions on online pornography.
According to a survey by the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life, nearly 7 in 10 (69 percent) of Americans support the idea of making online pornography less accessible. In 2013, 65 percent expressed support for policies restricting internet pornography.
The most substantial increase in the support for restrictive measures on pornography could be observed in young men (age 18-24). In 2013, about half of young men favored restrictions, while 40 percent actively opposed such policies. In 2025, 64 percent of men believe accessing online pornography should be made more difficult.
The largest support for restriction on internet pornography overall could be measured among older men (65+), where 73 percent favored restrictions. An even larger percentage of women in each age group supported making online pornography less accessible. Seventy-two percent of young women (age 18-24) favored restriction, while 87 percent of women 55 years or older expressed support for less accessibility of internet pornography.
Viewing pornography is highly addictive and can lead to serious health problems. Studies have shown that children often have their first encounter with pornography at around 12 years old, with boys having a lower average age of about 10-11, and some encountering online pornography as young as 8. Studies have also shown that viewing pornography regularly rewires humans brains and that children, adolescents, and younger men are especially at risk for becoming addicted to online pornography.
According to Gary Wilson’s landmark book on the matter, “Your Brain on Porn,” pornography addiction frequently leads to problems like destruction of genuine intimate relationships, difficulty forming and maintaining real bonds in relationship, depression, social anxiety, as well as reduction of gray matter, leading to desensitization and diminished pleasure from everyday activities among many others.
These four personality traits are predictive of addiction. A new program is using this knowledge to prevent addiction from ever developing
In classrooms across Canada, addiction prevention is getting personal.
Instead of warning students about the dangers of drugs, a program called PreVenture teaches students about themselves — and it’s working.
Developed by Canadian clinical psychologist Patricia Conrod, PreVenture helps young people recognize how traits like risk-taking or negative thinking shape their reactions to stress.
“When you intervene around these traits and help people learn new cognitive behavioural strategies to manage these traits, you are able to reduce their substance use,” said Conrod, who is also a professor at the Université de Montréal.
By tailoring addiction prevention strategies to individual personality profiles, the program is changing how we think about addiction — from something we react to, to something we might stop before it starts.
And now, scientists say the potential for early intervention is going even deeper — down to our genes.
Personality and addiction
PreVenture is a personality-targeted prevention program that helps young people understand and manage traits linked to a higher propensity for future substance use.
The program focuses on four core traits — anxiety sensitivity, sensation seeking, impulsivity and hopelessness — that shape how individuals experience the world and respond to stress, social situations and emotional challenges.
“They don’t only predict who’s at risk,” said Conrod in an interview with Canadian Affairs. “They predict what you’re at risk for with quite a lot of specificity.”
Anxiety sensitivity shows up in people who feel overwhelmed by physical symptoms like a racing heart or dizziness. People with this trait may ultimately turn to alcohol, benzodiazepines such as Xanax, or opioids to calm their bodies.
Sensation seeking is characterized by a desire for excitement and novel experiences. This trait is associated with a higher likelihood of being drawn to substances like cannabis, MDMA, psilocybin or other hallucinogens.
“[Cannabis] alters their perceptual experiences, and so makes things feel more novel,” said Conrod.
Sensation seeking is also associated with binge drinking or use of stimulants such as cocaine.
The trait of impulsivity involves difficulty controlling urges and delaying gratification. This trait is associated with a higher likelihood of engaging in risky behaviours and an increased risk of addiction to a broad range of substances.
“Young people with attentional problems and a core difficulty with response inhibition have a hard time putting a stop on a behaviour once they’ve initiated it,” said Conrod.
Finally, the trait of hopelessness is tied to a pessimistic, self-critical mindset. People with this trait often expect rejection or assume others are hostile, so they may use alcohol or opioids to dull emotional pain.
“We call it negative attributional style,” said Conrod. “They have come to believe that the world is against them, and they need to protect themselves.”
These traits also cluster into two broader categories — internalizing and externalizing.
Anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness direct distress inward, while sensation seeking and impulsivity are characterized by outward disinhibition.
“These traits change your perception,” said Conrod. “You see the world differently through these traits.”
Conrod also notes that these traits appear across cultures, making targeted addiction prevention broadly applicable.
Personality-based prevention
Unlike most one-size-fits-all drug prevention programs, PreVenture tailors its prevention strategies for each individual trait category to reduce substance use risk.
The program uses a brief personality assessment tool to identify students’ dominant traits. It then delivers cognitive-behavioural strategies to help users manage stress, emotions and risky behaviours associated with them.
Recreation of the personality assessment tool based on the substance use risk profile scale — a scale measuring traits linked to reinforcement-specific substance use profiles. | Alexandra Keeler
Students learn to recognize how their dominant trait influences their thoughts and reactions — and how to shift those patterns in healthier directions.
“We’re trying to raise awareness to young people about how these traits are influencing their automatic thinking,” said Conrod. “You’re having them be a little more critical of their thoughts.”
Hopelessness is addressed by teaching strategies to challenge depressive thoughts; those high in sensation seeking explore safer ways to satisfy their need for stimulation; anxiety sensitivity is managed through calming techniques; and impulsivity is reduced by practicing pausing before acting.
Crucially, the program emphasizes the strengths of each trait as well.
“We try to present [traits] in a more positive way, not just a negative way,” said Sherry Stewart, a clinical psychologist at Dalhousie University who collaborates with Conrod.
“Your personality gets you into trouble — certainly, we discuss that — but also, what are the strengths of your personality?”
While a main goal of the program is preventing substance use disorders, the program barely discusses substances.
“You don’t really have to talk about substances very much,” said Conrod. “You talk more about how you’re managing the trait, and it has this direct impact on someone’s motivation to use, as well as how severely they experience mental health symptoms.”
The workshops make it clear, however, that while substances may offer temporary relief, they often worsen the very symptoms participants are trying to manage.
The genetic angle
Catherine Brownstein, a Harvard Medical School professor and geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital, says genetic factors also help explain why some people are more vulnerable to addiction.
“A lot of personality is genetic,” she said in an interview with Canadian Affairs.
Her research has identified 47 locations in human DNA that affect brain development and shape personality traits.
While substance use risk cannot yet be detected genetically, certain gene variants — like SHANK3, NRXN1 and CRY1 — are linked to psychiatric disorders that often co-occur with substance use, including ADHD and schizophrenia.
Brownstein also says genetic variations influence pain perception.
Some variants increase pain sensitivity, while others eliminate it altogether. One such gene, SCN9A, may make individuals more likely to seek opioids for relief.
“If you’re in pain all the time, you want it to stop, and opioids are effective,” said Brownstein.
While we cannot yet predict addiction risk from genetics alone, Brownstein says she thinks genetic screening combined with psychological profiling could one day personalize prevention even further.
Expansion and challenges
Conrod’s personality-targeted intervention program, PreVenture, has proven highly effective.
A five-year study published in January found that students who participated in PreVenture workshops were 23 to 80 per cent less likely to develop substance use disorders by Grade 11.
Stewart says that the concept of PreVenture began with adults with substance use disorders, but research suggests earlier intervention can alter life trajectories. That insight has driven PreVenture’s expansion to younger age groups.
Conrod’s team delivers PreVenture to middle and high school students, UniVenture to university students and OpiVenture to adults in treatment for opioid dependence.
PreVenture has been implemented in schools across the U.S. and Canada, including in B.C., Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Five Canadian universities are participating in the UniVenture study.
However, currently, Canada’s flagship youth prevention strategy is based on the Icelandic Prevention Model — a 1990s framework that aims to reduce youth substance use by focusing on environmental factors such as family, school and peer influence.
While the Icelandic Prevention Model has shown success in Iceland, it has serious limitations. It lacks a mental health component, does not specifically address opioid use and has demonstrated mixed results by gender.
Despite strong evidence for personality-targeted prevention, programs like PreVenture remain underused.
Conrod says education systems often default to less effective, generic methods like one-off guest speakers. She also cites staffing shortages and burnout in schools, along with insufficient mental health services, as major barriers to implementing a new program.
Still, momentum is building.
B.C. has aligned their prevention services with the PreVenture model. And organizations such as the youth wellness networks Foundry B.C. and Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario are offering the program and expanding its reach.
Conrod believes the power of the program lies in helping young people feel seen and understood.
“It’s really important that a young person is provided with the space and focus to recognize what’s unique about [their] particular trait,” she said.
“Recognize that there are other people in the world that also think this way [and tell them] you’re not going crazy.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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