CRYSTAL METH DRUG OF CHOICE
Illicit substance outstrips opioids at supervised consumption site
Even as Alberta grapples with the opioid crisis, meth remains the illicit drug of choice in Calgary — and the most commonly used drug at the city’s supervised consumption site.
The creation of the Safeworks site at the Sheldon Chumir Health Centre was driven by the opioid emergency and the hundreds of resulting overdose deaths.
However, the most recent statistics for the facility show that in March, the most frequently reported drug used by clients was meth/ crystal meth at 1,313 times, nearly double that of fentanyl, which was used 695 times. Clients may use more than one drug at a time.
Since the site launched at the end of October 2017, meth — a psychostimulant — has been the most prevalent drug used in each of its months of operation, ahead of the opioids fentanyl and heroin.
The 186 overdoses reversed at the facility through the end of March were all related to opioid use, however.
Claire O’Gorman, Safeworks’ program director, said there is still a significant public health benefit to providing a site for crystal meth use.
“We don’t know what’s in the drugs. The drugs that are out there in the drug market are so contaminated, that even if someone comes in thinking they have one substance, it might be a very different substance,” O’Gorman said in an interview.
“The other piece is, these sites really offer an opportunity for all kinds of health benefits beyond overdose prevention. It allows people a safe, hygienic space for them to use their substances that would perhaps be otherwise used publicly ... We’re preventing things like communicable diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C, we’re preventing things like abscesses and infections and bacterial infections.”
O’Gorman said meth has long been a popular drug in Alberta because it has historically been easier to access than opioids. Its prevalence appears to have grown recently, however.
The Calgary Police Service made 833 seizures of meth in 2017, 15 per cent more than a year earlier and the highest amount of any drug.
The number of meth seizures in 2017 was 142 per cent higher than the five-year average, while the seizures of all other drugs came in lower than the five-year average.
Staff Sgt. Kyle Grant, with the Calgary police’s strategic enforcement unit, said crystal meth is by far the most common illicit drug found in the central Calgary area served by the Safeworks site.
“It’s cheaper than most other drugs ... because it’s manufactured relatively simply compared to all the other drugs,” he said. “With the production of meth and the high that it produces, that is now the drug of choice.”
Meth is highly addictive, with withdrawal symptoms that can include psychosis and intense drug cravings.
There are clear benefits to crystal meth users being able to access the supervised consumption facility, said Grant.
“Obviously, the chance of a medical emergency is quite high with all drug use, so if medical professionals can intervene, it’s giving those people another chance to figure out this is not for them,” he said.
Crystal meth is commonly consumed by smoking, though that is not allowed at the Safeworks site, which permits users to snort, swallow or inject their drugs.
A recent needs assessment conducted by the Calgary Coalition on Supervised Consumption said there is a gap in services in the city because of the lack of a supervised smoking site.
The report found that Calgary would also benefit from a distribution program for the pipes used to smoke meth, similar to existing needle exchange programs, to cut down on the spread of communicable diseases. The needs assessment found that 81 per cent of users of crystal meth have shared, lent or borrowed a meth pipe.
Leslie Hill, co-chair of the coalition and executive director of HIV Community Link, said Lethbridge has the only supervised inhalation site in the country.
“The challenge is the infrastructure required to do inhalation safely from an occupational health and safety perspective. There’s a huge investment in specific HVAC equipment and that type of thing,” she said. “We have made recommendation to the province that they consider inhalation equipment and we’re currently awaiting a response to that request.”
HIV Community Link has been approved to open a supervised consumption site in Medicine Hat. Hill said meth is one of the most prevalent drugs used in the southeast Alberta city and the new facility, expected to open this fall, will have a separate area for smoking.