City opens 'supervised environment for people to use their drugs'

Three people will be able to inject illegal drugs at a time in the clinic, near Victoria and Dundas Sts., which aims to end a spike in overdose deaths.

Thestar.com
Aug. 21, 2017
By David Rider

Toronto has taken a controversial step to combat overdose deaths, opening its first city-run site for people to use illegal intravenous drugs.

"It provides a safe environment for people who are going to use drugs," Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's chief public health official, told reporters outside the building at Victoria and Dundas Sts. that already houses The Works needle-exchange program.

"We know both through research and lived experience it's highest risk for overdose and deaths when people... use alone," she said. "We provide a safe environment, a supervised environment for people to use their drugs safely, so they minimize harm to themselves."

The temporary safe-injection site, to be replaced by three bigger permanent sites this fall, will operate from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

In a plain clinical room, up to three people at a time can sit at a long table and inject drugs and put used needles into a yellow plastic disposal tub.

Staff expect to keep an eye on up to nine drug users per hour and hope each will stay at least 15 minutes for rest and observation for any signs of overdose.

The permanent site being built across the hall will accommodate up to five people at a time and open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. The others will be at Queen West Central Toronto Community Health Centre on Bathurst St. and South Riverdale Community Health Centre near Carlaw Ave.

Health Canada had previously issued the city permission to host the sites. The federal agency inspected and approved the temporary site last week.

The city pushed forward with a temporary site after local harm-reduction advocates, anxious over a spike in overdose deaths apparently related to the highly toxic painkiller fentanyl, opened their own safe-injection site in a tent in Moss Park.

Nick Boyce, one of the volunteers at that "pop-up" site, welcomed the city clinic, but said there are no plans to close the Moss Park site.

People who shoot up in the tent have a range of mental and physical issues and wouldn't necessarily head northwest to the city site, he said.

"We intend to continue supporting those people. We're starting to build relationships and trust with those people," said the harm-reduction advocate.

"These are people that are injecting drugs in that park already. That's why we went there. We're trying to get them away from the playground, away from the swings, away from the baseball diamond into a tent where they can use safely, and we can look after them."

The city site will be staffed by two nurses, two counsellors and a manager. Shaun Hopkins, who manages the needle exchange, said the permanent site will have more staff to accommodate more drug users and a bigger "chill-out" space for them to be observed.

"They still might overdose, but we're here to monitor and make sure they get the medical attention that they need," she said. "Obviously, we're really concerned; a lot of people have died. It's preventable, so that's why we wanted to get this up and running as quickly as possible."

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who represents Ward 7 in the Finch Ave.-Weston Rd. area, arrived at the new site to tell reporters it will encourage drug use and cause problems in the area, including at nearby Yonge-Dundas Square.

De Villa noted safe-injection sites have been running for years in other cities and said research on them "supports the benefit of supervised injection services as a harm-reduction measure, not only for drug users themselves, but also as a method by which to minimize social harms."

In a statement Mayor John Tory reiterated he doesn't believe Moss Park is an "appropriate place" for a safe-injection site.

Tory did not say if he will try to get the pop-up site closed down.

Asked Monday about the police response to the Moss Park tent, Toronto Police spokesperson Mark Pugash said: "We'll continue to operate on a day-by-day basis, but we have no plans to change our position.

"When it first popped up, our superintendent met with the organizers and agreed on a number of conditions which we think go a long way towards minimizing risks to public safety, and we'll continue on that basis."

There have been 325 suspected overdoses in the four weeks leading up to Aug. 13, according to the most recent data available from the city's Toronto Overdose Information System.

Safe injection sites currently operate in Vancouver, Surrey, B.C., Kelowna, B.C., Kamloops, B.C. and Montreal, with other cities including Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton planning or considering them.