This father felt 'helpless' as his daughter succumbed to opioids. She died aged 14

Greg Sword remembers how his daughter Kamilah used to love coming to play in Lions Park when she was a little girl growing up in Port Coquitlam, B.C.

"You got the river just down from here where we could go swimming … [we'd] bring her bike here, she would just ride around and be so full of life," Sword told The Current.

But as Kamilah got older and went to high school, she began to experiment with drugs to cope with anxiety and pressure she felt about not fitting in with her peers. Like many teenagers, she started with marijuana, but moved on to prescription drugs like Xanax and dangerous opioids like fentanyl. 

The park where she once played with her dad became the place she would buy and use those drugs.

"I had to drag my daughter out of this park a few times, and every time she was just obliterated," Sword said. "And it's just a horrible place for me to be."

Kamilah died from an overdose in August 2022. She was just 14 years old.

Last month, the B.C. coroner reported that unregulated drugs were the leading cause of unnatural death among the province's youth between 2017 and 2022. This year there have already been 19 unregulated drug deaths, while research in Ontario shows that opioid-related deaths among teens and young adults tripled in that province between 2014 and 2021.

But parents like Sword say they've struggled to navigate treatment options and approaches when their children end up in the health-care system. Sword hasn't received the coroner's report yet, but he's been told that cocaine, MDMA and hydromorphone were found in his daughter's system. 

Kamilah had been hospitalized with two previous overdoses, and had met with psychiatrists, youth counsellors and drugs counsellors. But Sword said he was sometimes excluded from those conversations, and worries that Kamilah knew what to say to downplay the problem and avoid treatment programs.

After her first overdose, a drug counsellor told Kamilah she could keep using marijuana to deal with her anxiety, telling Sword it was at least a safer alternative to opioids. 

"She's 13 at the time. I don't want her doing anything," Sword remembers. "But my daughter heard a professional tell her that she can keep on doing pot — Dad knows nothing." 

At times, he said he felt "absolutely helpless."

Addiction medicine specialist Dr. James Wang said younger and younger patients are showing up to his hospital with overdose and substance use issues, including children as young as 12. 

Once those teens are stable, he said they undergo an assessment of what drugs they're using and what treatments might be suitable. But he added that an important part of that conversation is asking why they're taking those drugs — and whether they're ready to make a change.