How safe supply of drugs is saving lives and destigmatizing substance use Judy Darcy, B.C.’s minister of mental health and addictions, announced last March that physicians could prescribe pharmaceutical alternatives to street drugs for people who use substances. In September, Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C.’s provincial health officer, passed an order allowing registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses to prescribe controlled substances in an attempt to increase access to a safer supply after a record-breaking number of drug toxicity deaths over the summer. One factor that contributed to this surge of deaths is an extremely toxic and illegally produced drug supply with high fentanyl concentrations in all illicit substances. This is in part due to border closures shutting off supply chains.