Kenney signals discomfort with supervised consumption sites
While UCP leader has toned down rhetoric, advocates have reason to be concerned
Albertans who operate the province’s seven supervised drug consumption sites were probably unsure how to feel Thursday after UCP Leader Jason Kenney was done announcing his party’s plans to deal with the opioid crisis. I’ll admit I was, too. Relief was one emotion, considering Kenney avoided a repeat of some of his past inflammatory rhetoric.
“Helping addicts inject poison into their bodies is not a longterm solution to the problem,” he wrote in Facebook post a year ago. “Enabling someone to commit slow-motion suicide — to throw their life away — is not compassion.”
It was a message that showed remarkably poor understanding of the nature of addiction and seemed to heartlessly dismiss the thousands of lives saved by from overdoses by supervised consumption sites.
Based on those past comments, site supporters were likely expecting Kenney to call for immediate closures, or at least impose a prohibition on opening new services.
But the UCP leader — already under fire this week for promising to roll back protections for another vulnerable group, LGBTQ youth involved in gaystraight alliances — stopped short of drastic measures in outlining his party’s opioid policy.
Still, his announcement was far from a ringing endorsement of supervised drug facilities, which is why supporters were likely still feeling some anxiety.
Characterizing his party’s policy as a “sensible and compassionate approach,” Kenney said applicants for new sites must demonstrate proper consultations with affected communities, conduct a socio-economic analysis, and plan to have attached treatment services if they hope to earn UCP support.
As for existing facilities, he vowed to also put them through a socio-economic impact assessment, which would include consultations to determine if better locations could be found to reduce negative effects on surrounding communities.
“They are causing concern amongst Albertans for multiple reasons — discarded needles, deterioration of communities and neighbourhoods, attraction of drug dealers and increased crime in surrounding neighbourhoods,” he said, again using some of that inflammatory language.
Regarding the three public sites in north-central Edmonton — George Spady Centre, Boyle Street Community Services and Boyle McCauley Health Centre — he alleged the facilities were dumped into the area without proper consultation and have caused “devastating” effects for residents and businesses.
Rhetoric like that, especially when it isn’t backed up with evidence, suggests a UCP-led review of the sites won’t exactly be conducted with an open mind.
If Kenney wants evidence of how the sites are working, there is plenty already available.
Over the course of last year, the seven supervised consumption sites in Alberta saw nearly 220,000 visits and reversed more than 2,500 overdoses.
In Edmonton, among the three public sites that opened at different times last year, there have been, to date, nearly 46,000 visits from 1,450 unique clients, and 474 reversed overdoses.
In terms of the “compassion” Kenney is seeking, I suspect those who had their lives saved would say they were well served on that score.
Yet the UCP leader didn’t mention those reversals once during his announcement Thursday.
There is also evidence that the facilities are seeing good take-up from clients on additional services. Nearly 25,000 referrals have been made, including access to housing assistance, mental health counselling, employment support, addiction treatment and other services that can help individuals stabilize their lives as they work toward becoming drug-free.
City statistics show needles found by municipal crews across Edmonton took a sharp decline since the supervised consumption sites opened last year, while demand for police response in the areas around the sites has declined slightly — though the data is based on a small sample size.
ROBUST RESEARCH
As well, the facilities were rigorously studied before being established and have been the subject of robust research ever since. Health Canada’s approval process is difficult, and includes the requirement for community consultation.
A business group attempting to have the approvals quashed, in part by arguing lack of consultation, lost its court case last month.
All that said, it is essential that authorities continue to listen to the concerns of surrounding communities, and take steps to alleviate problems.
And should the UCP win the coming election it is not unreasonable for a new government to want to better understand the landscape before making decisions.
Kenney’s opioid response strategy also contains a number of positive things, including: $100 million over four years to expand mental health and addictions services, and additional funding for a telehealth program that allows rural Albertans to more easily receive a prescription for opioid dependency treatment.
It’s good to hear him take the issue seriously and to classify it as a crisis, since two Albertans continue to die each day due to opioids.
But on the issue of supervised consumption sites, he still seems behind the times. No matter how many treatment spaces or prescriptions are provided, there will still be a need for more immediate protections these sites provide.
Making organizations jump through continual hoops to justify their existence, or to repeat work they have already done, is counter-productive.
“These sites are such a critical part of the opioid crisis, and to put any more red tape in place to prevent their implementation in our province would be really short sighted,” said Elaine Hyshka, a researcher and one of the organizers of the Edmonton facilities. “We have good evidence these models work.”