People dying while Ford delays

RE: ‘SOFT APPROACH’ URGED FOR OVERDOSE PREVENTION SITE, SEPT. 5

Niagara’s acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Mustafa Hirji is urging the public to use a “soft approach” to this issue. In my opinion, a soft approach may just lead to more deaths, more overdoses and lastly, more harm.

Harm reduction refers to “policies, programs and practices that aim to reduce the harms associated with the use of psychoactive drugs in people unable or unwilling to stop. The defining features are the focus on the prevention of harm, rather than on the prevention of drug use itself, and the focus on people who continue to use drugs”. (Harm reduction international, 2018). What about a soft approach supports harm reduction?

Members of our community are dying. Lets look at the accumulated evidence in Canada or the proven effectiveness of safe injection sites for the past 15 years and start saving lives. There are six to 15 overdoses per day in Niagara — this is a community problem.

Harm reduction cannot be watered down, as Dr. Hirji suggests. A safe injection site is not focused on “referring people to addiction treatment centres” or “providing interventions to get people off opioids.”

The focus is to reduce harm, to save lives. We need to start focusing on people, not addiction.

Anger can be a motivating factor in fighting for change. The people of Niagara should be angry. We were ready to “set up shop,” we had the space, the oversight and a date! Safe injection sites have already saved lives. Drug users are just as much a part of our community as politicians, as educators, as cancer survivors, as seniors, etc. We owe them as much as we owe any other community member. I disagree with the “soft approach” Dr Hirji is suggesting.

I think its time we got angry, and take a hard approach!

LeeAnn Pocknell,

St. Catharines