Ontario’s medical regulator approves changes to prescribing safer supply drugs
Written by The Canadian Press on October 13, 2026
TORONTO — Ontario’s medical regulator has approved significant changes to the way doctors prescribe safer supply drugs, in an effort to reduce the amount of opioids making their way to the streets.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s board of directors will soon implement several changes to the practice of prescribing safer supply, which are medications given to people at high risk of overdose as an alternative to illicit opioids.
The college will make it mandatory for physicians to prescribe safer supply medications only in conjunction with opioid agonist therapy. The therapy uses medications such as Suboxone and methadone to treat opioid addiction.
The most common form of safer supply is hydromorphone, a powerful opioid often prescribed for pain but significantly less potent than fentanyl and its derivatives that dominate the illicit drug supply chain.
Patients will now have to take the safer supply medications in front of health-care professionals, rather than take the pills home.
The college will not go ahead with an eight-week time limit for physicians to prescribe safer supply to patients it had previously considered.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2026.
Liam Casey, The Canadian Press