Provincial Health officer Dr. Perry Kendall, speaks about the latest statistics on illicit drug overdose deaths and fentanyl-detected overdose deaths during a press conference at the press gallery at Legislature in Victoria on January 18, 2017. Prescribing medicinal heroin to prevent overdose deaths might appear to clash with common sense, but the provincial health officer in B.C. is backing the idea because he says European-style drug treatment programs work. Kendall said he wants support from colleagues in health care and law enforcement to push the province to create treatment programs that prescribe a pharmaceutical-grade version of heroin, called diacetylmorphine. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito