Those on the front lines put opioid misconceptions to rest
FOUND NEEDLES BEING BLOWN UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA
The beginning of a multi-phase effort to address the drug crisis and surrounding spinoff crime got underway Monday with a Community Issues Committee meeting on the opioid crisis.
The event was intended to provide information from service providers to help inform the upcoming community consultation process and the work of the ad hoc committee to develop a community-driven drug policy.
The coalition has identified four pillars in dealing with the drug issue in the city, including treatment, harm reduction, enforcement and prevention and education.
Jill Manning, managing director of ARCHES, told the committee there have been about 65,000 visits to the supervised consumption site in about six months. Currently, the site is seeing 460 visits per day and 850 individual clients are registered for the site.
There have been more than 600 “medical emergencies” at the site since it opened.
And while these numbers outpace the activity at similar sites in Calgary and Edmonton, Manning said the numbers need context.
“Because these services — specifically, supervised consumption services, are embedded in a service that is not a mainstream traditional health-care facility,” she said.
“Because of that, it’s more barrier free for folks.”
She also addressed issues surrounding needle debris in the community.
“There is a perception in the community that, right now, we are at the height of the needle debris crisis,” said Manning. “That’s not factual, according to our data and statistics.”
Instead, she says, because this is a boiling-point issue for the community, she believes when people find a needle in the community, it is blown up on social media.
“Every single needle is being reported and made a very large deal out of,” she said. “That’s causing people to believe the problem is greater than it is.”
Fire chief Rich Hildebrand told the committee that emergency responders continue to deal with significant numbers of overdoses.
He said the data collected makes it difficult to interpret how the supervised consumption site has affected the numbers, but did say every overdose handled at the site was likely one less handled by emergency responders on the street.
“For every one of those they deal with, it’s one fewer that we have to deal with in the community,” he said.
And while responding to overdoses does cause some strain on resources, the nature of the events are such that they continue to impact frontline staff emotionally and psychologically.
“You see some of the folks out there providing counselling services and support services — they are not accustomed to seeing a high rate of death in their clients. So this is new for them. And we’ve tried to come up with frameworks to assist them as well.”
Police chief Rob Davis told the committee a lack of provincial legislation has been a significant roadblock in how police deal with drug issues.
For example, legislation allowing for the lawful detention of intoxicated people by medical professionals is present in some provinces but not in Alberta.
“With the lack of that in Alberta, they end up defaulting through the justice system to our cells or to incarceration,” he said.
Additionally, with a city the size of Lethbridge, Davis urged city council members to reach out to their provincial and federal counterparts and explore the idea of bringing a dedicated Crown prosecutor specifically to deal with the drug crisis.
“I’m confident there would be enough work to support a full-time dedicated federal prosecutor,” he said. “It would definitely be worthwhile exploring.” He also addressed a number of rumours floating around on social media.
He said, categorically, there is no bubble or “no go” zone around the safe consumption site. “That’s complete nonsense,” he said. He added rumours that school resource officer spots have been eliminated were also false, and that drug police removed from drug investigations. He noted the reality is that some members of ALERT have been moved off the group in order to better focus specifically on local issues such as drug crime.
“On Oct. 10 we’re bringing (some) officers out of the ALERT unit,” he said. “We have a posting right now to double the strength of the DPU. That’s where the bulk of the issues are, so that’s where we’re going to put the skill set,” he said. “In uniform, and downtown, to address the issues.”
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