T.O. aims to curb Indigenous overdoses

Health panel report recommends culturally relevant centres and outreach that promote dignity

After hearing about the toll the overdose crisis is taking on Indigenous Torontonians, the city’s public health board voted unanimously to adopt a strategy aimed at reducing the suffering.

“I’ve lost so many relatives that have died from overdoses in the short time that this report has gone on,” Les Harper, from Alberta’s Saddle Lake Cree Nation and now working at South Riverdale Community Health Centre’s supervised drug consumption site, told the board Monday.

“I’ve lost people that I’ve worked for in this community, I’ve lost friends in this time continuously ... we need people to step aside to let us run those (harm reduction) programs and those things that we need.”

On one day at the overdose-prevention site at Moss Park, where Harper also helps out, more than half the clients identified as Indigenous, he said, yet he’s a rarity among those trying to keep those users safe and, if possible, guide them to treatment. Another issue is Indigenous programs being almost exclusively abstinence-based, as opposed to harm reduction for people still using drugs.

The 2016 census says First Nations, Inuit and Métis Torontonians comprise just over 1 per cent of the population, although many believe that is an underestimate. Indigenous people comprised 4 per cent of the 257 Torontonian s confirmed dead from opioid

overdoses between Oct. 1, 2017 and Sept. 30, 2018, according to city figures.

Pierre Gregoire, part of Innu Nation and originally from Labrador, died in February 2017 after injecting himself in a Toronto KFC washroom with heroin suspected of containing fentanyl.

Areport completed for Toronto Public Health led by an Indigenous consultant involved canvassing present and past drug users through traditional talking circles. It concludes that providing “cleanliness, human dignity, kindness, safe spaces and food sovereignty through culturally relevant drop-in centres and outreach services will save lives among (Indigenous drug users) who need a place to belong.”

The report says a perception that service workers don’t know about Indigenous culture, the assimilation and repression of residential schools and other traumas, makes users feel like “misfits,” and recommends extra programs on top of the city’s overdose-prevention strategy.

But Toronto has no identified revenue source for new drop-in centres and outreach centres and is calling on the provincial and federal governments to help fund Indigenous-specific services.

The health board voted to send a copy of the report to all MPs, MPPs and school boards.

Also Monday, the board unanimously voted to urge the federal government to ban cannabis edibles made in shapes that appeal to children, including gummy bears and lollipops.

Dr. Eileen de Villa, the medical officer of health, reminded the board that the city’s official policy is that Ottawa should legal- ize all drugs, while putting in place rules, programs and services to minimize the personal and societal harms they cause.

Washington and Colorado, states where recreational marijuana was previously legalized, have seen spikes in the number of children treated for accidental marijuana intoxication, de Villa said.

Kids who ingest it can suffer breathing difficulty, seizures and, in severe cases, coma.

“A significant number of those cases were, in fact, due to products that were appealing to youth and young children, mistaken as just regular candies and in fact were cannabis-containing candies,” she said.

Earlier this month, siblings aged 5 and 2 from Brandon, Man., were treated after finding and eating cannabis-laced chocolate stored by their moth- er in a closet above a fridge. The toddler had seizures and was hospitalized in life-threatening condition, but made a full recovery.

Edible cannabis products were not included when federal legislation legalized the use of cannabis leaves, oil and seeds last year, but the government said the law would be amended to allow for edibles by this October.

While not legal, cannabis edibles are widely available in Toronto shops.

The board also wants Ottawa to ban cannabis vaping liquids offered in “youth-friendly” flavours that mimic candy or soft drinks, and to label cannabis products with dose information and warnings about the risks of mixing them with alcohol or highly caffeinated drinks.

With files from Jason Miller