Don’t freeze injection sites
After spending three long months conducting an “evidencebased review” of whether overdose prevention and supervised injection sites actually save lives, Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott has concluded they do that — and much more.
They also reduce the incidence of needle-transmitted diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C and lower rates of public drug use, she acknowledged. And they improve the health of those who use drugs, are cost-effective and reduce the strain on the health care system.
None of this is any surprise. Study after study around the world has shown it to be so. What is something of a surprise is that the minister could actually acknowledge all that in the face of Premier Doug Ford’s campaign promise to close down all these life-saving sites. Who can forget Ford’s unequivocal declaration last April that he was “dead against” what he called “safe injection areas”? Nonetheless, Elliott announced that the government will allow 21sites to operate in the province under a new name: Consumption and Treatment Services.
That is no small victory in a government whose ministers have repeatedly ignored evidence-based decisions to please the premier. Elliott deserves credit for not caving in to Ford’s campaign trail pronouncements. But, sadly, what she spelled out is not enough. The fact is that even as the minister acknowledged the importance of the facilities, she then announced she is putting the brakes on opening any new sites.
The 21 sites she said the government will allow just happens to include the 18 currently operating and three more that have already been approved in Toronto, St. Catharines and Thunder Bay.
This is a dangerous limitation. It will leave entire cities, never mind communities, without the life-saving facilities that addicts need in the middle of an opioid overdose crisis that killed 1,100 in this province last year. That’s an alarming increase of 50 per cent over the year before. Further, the decision to limit the number of sites was made even as she admitted in a media statement that the current levels of addiction treatment, mental health services and supportive housing options available for addicts in Ontario are “inadequate.” It gets worse. Elliott also announced there will be no new funding for existing sites. This, too, is a dangerous decision. Many of the facilities have only enough funding now to operate for limited hours, leaving addicts with no recourse but to inject on streets and in alleyways without supervision when the sites are closed.
And she has outright banned any pop-up sites run by volunteer harm reduction workers from opening.
This is a setback in the fight against overdoses, where quick and nimble saves the day. In fact, Toronto’s first overdose prevention site in downtown Moss Park was opened in a tent in August 2017 by volunteers in the absence of any official sites. In just nine months of operation they overturned 200 overdoses. The sad fact is that all these restrictions ignore the fact that this is a growing crisis, one that Canada’s chief public health officer blamed this week for a recent drop in Canadian’s life expectancy. More resources, not less, are required to reverse course.
To her credit, Elliott has averted the disaster that would have ensued if the existing sites were closed and hundreds more addicts died as a result. But there’s a real risk that other lives won’t be saved by new overdose prevention sites and additional funding for existing facilities. That trade-off is not acceptable. The minister should act on the evidence she has gathered and fight to open more sites. The battle against opioid overdoses is far from won.
Elliott deserves credit for not caving in to Ford’s campaign trail pronouncements. But, sadly, what she spelled out is not enough