Top doctor calls for new drug approach
Health board chair says overdose crisis should provoke rethinking
Toronto’s new medical officer of health is calling for a public discussion on the merits of decriminalizing all drugs in the wake of the ongoing overdose epidemic.
“It’s clear that our current approach to drugs in this city and this country doesn’t seem to be having the desired impact,” Dr. Eileen de Villa told reporters Friday at a briefing on how the city is responding to drug users overdosing and, in some cases, dying.
There have been six suspected fatal overdoses since the weekend, including two teens found dead in an Etobicoke highrise.
In addition, Toronto emergency wards treated 79 people suspected of overdosing during the last week of July. It’s not yet clear how many were deaths.
Last year, it’s believed more than 2,400 Canadians died as a result of opioid-related overdoses.
On Friday, following Thursday’s emergency meeting of city partners, de Villa reviewed with reporters the city’s overdose prevention strategies, which include asking police to carry the fentanyl antidote and speeding up the opening of three safe injection sites.
De Villa said among the10 key strategies in Toronto’s Overdose Action Plan is a call for a public health approach to drug policy that puts the health of the community first, “rather than looking at this as an issue of criminal behaviour and/or an area for law enforcement.”
The city is convening a committee of health and drug policy experts to explore “a different approach that puts the health of the community first,” she said.
While acknowledging the city doesn’t have the power to change the Criminal Code, “Toronto has always been a leader . . . in policy and I don’t see why we wouldn’t continue to be a leader on this front,” said de Villa, who stepped into her high-profile position four months ago.
Councillor Joe Mihevc, chair of the board of health, joined de Villa at the briefing and said the generations of the war on drugs has been an “abject failure.”
He said Toronto should be “provoking” the conversation that is happening internationally.
About 25 countries, including Portugal, have decriminalized drugs in some form, and next year recreational marijuana will be legal in Canada, he noted.
“Is it appropriate, is it a wise use of public resources to be throwing police, lawyers, courts . . . the criminal justice system at it, or is it an issue where we throw in a lot more public health staff and nurses? What yields the best result?” he said.
Mihevc predicted, if the fentanyl crisis deepens in Canada, mayors across the country will begin pressuring the federal government to look at legalizing and regulating illicit drugs.
He drew the connection to the wave of opioid overdoses, where former patients prescribed painkillers, including “nice, white middle-class people,” get hooked, then turn to fentanyl-laced heroin bought on the illegal market. Some traffickers cut their drug supply with fentanyl, a highly potent painkiller.
“If there is a silver lining to the tragedy that we’re living with overdoses, it is provoking a larger conversation on how we have understood drugs, the control of drugs, the illegality of drugs, the ethics of drug use in Canada,” Mihevc said.
“It’s clear that our current approach to drugs in this city and this country doesn’t seem to be having the desired impact.” DR. EILEEN DE VILLA TORONTO MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH