'So angry with the system'

Last month, at the age of 20, Brayden Rioux fatally overdosed on fentanyl in a Kelowna shelter bed, face down with his drugs tucked underneath his body.

It was the conclusion to a long battle against untold mental health struggles, drug abuse and systemic failures that threw his life into chaos.

“I am so angry with the system,” Janice Rioux, Brayden's mom and a nurse, said.

“I’m also happy he’s at peace, finally. He had no peace for the last five years.”

Brayden, Rioux said, started using drugs when he was around 15 years old. She watched helplessly as it quickly escalated to an addiction.

She sought help from the Ministry of Family and Children when it became unmanageable, and his relationship with his two siblings and dad fell apart.

That, in itself, was heartbreaking.

Brayden, she said, was “beautiful boy.”

"He had the most kind and compassionate heart and soul,” Rioux said. "He loved the outdoors and he had so much potential."

He had been diagnosed with ADHD, though Janice suspected there was something more at play.

“I kept advocating to social workers and they said they couldn’t diagnose any mental issues until 19,” she said.

By then, an addiction to “down”—a mix of fentanyl and heroin—had already led him down a dark path.

“He had been in hospital twice with drug induced psychosis and they would discharge him,” she said. “Police would come — they knew him well — when he would threaten suicide.”

She said for a while she regularly called in late to work, because she would be called to pick Brayden up from Kelowna cells.

Once, she said, he was in hospital after being beaten up, he'd overdosed several times and a couple of stints at rehab or in supportive housing also went poorly.

A lot of things went poorly.

Every time it did, she would be notified by doctors, police, case-workers or a combination.

Every time it did, he would be free to carry on in the way that had already put him in harm’s way.

And therein lies the problem, she surmised.

“What the system is doing is failing. It’s not working,” she said.

“I am not sure if drugs and psychosis caused damage but he wasn’t capable of making decisions to go to rehab and change,” she said.

And that might be the point.

“Someone with dementia can’t choose, but a drug addict can, and they will choose no help,” she said.

Involuntary care, she said, could have saved Brayden.

“He would have given a diagnosis, maybe a treatment course, or even the ability to be clean for a significant amount of time,” she said.

With that, she thinks, he may have had a chance and gotten the help he needed.

The Premier announced last month that British Columbia will be opening secure facilities to provide involuntary care under the Mental Health Act for those with severe addictions or who are mentally ill.

David Eby pledged the NDP would change the law in the next legislative session to "provide clarity and ensure that people, including youth, can and should receive care when they are unable to seek it themselves."

"People with addiction challenges, brain injuries and mental-health issues need compassionate care and direct and assertive intervention to help them stabilize and rebuild a meaningful life," he said.

A Kelowna pediatrician feels the same way.

Dr. Tom Warshawski has been lobbying the province for the change in policy that mirrors policy in other provinces since 2019 and said it will save lives simply because young people who need the help may simply not be able to see their way to that avenue.

Warshawski said almost all teens with serious substance use disorders have significant mental health challenges, and some have additional developmental disabilities but impairments can improve with sobriety.

"Most chronic users have had their brain reward systems hijacked by drugs and will continue to use them despite the accompanying risk of death,” he said.

"Persons who have had a life-threatening overdose have a five-to-10 per cent chance of dying within one year. Continuing in a dangerous pattern of chronic drug use is irrational and inconsistent with the assumption that the user is in full control of their decision-making process.”

He pointed out that asking youth if they want to go into care, and abiding by their decision when "they shrug their shoulders and say 'no’” is inconsistent with evidence for proper treatment and unethical.

“We don’t let people under 19 buy alcohol, but they can buy fentanyl?” he said.