Pubdate: Sat, 05 Aug 2017
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2017 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Authors: Richard Warnica and Jake Edmiston
Page: A6

IN A 'CORNER OF HELL' WITH A KILLER DRUG

TORONTO - The swaying man stood in front of the convenience store, his
head drooping near his knees, a bag of ladies' jeans in one hand. The
pants retailed for $ 35 apiece, he said, but he'd take $10 for the
lot.

A prospective customer checked out the bag. The security tags were
still on the pants. Plus, he noted, they were too small for his
girlfriend. He eyed the salesman, struggling now. "He needs a hit," he
said. "He's sick."

On Thursday, the heroin dealers, normally ever present, were scarce on
this corner, in the east end of Toronto's downtown. Police cruisers
were parked in the area. Normally, though, the man said, it's a
"corner of hell."

"You come here and your life gets ruined," he said. On his fingers, he
ticked off the names of at least six friends who have died of drug
overdoses in the last year alone.

"It's a crisis," said the man, who declined to give his name. "But it
ain't nothing new."

In the last week, six people have died in Toronto of what police
suspect were fentanyl-related overdoses. One of them, a still
unidentified woman, overdosed in the stairwell of an apartment
building near this corner, in Toronto's Moss Park.

The sudden spike in deaths caused the Toronto Police to issue an
official public warning Saturday. On Thursday, Mayor John Tory
convened an emergency meeting at City Hall with first responders,
including police, paramedics, the fire department and officials from
public health.

Tory emerged vowing to step up efforts to prevent and treat overdoses,
including additional training for city staff, wider distribution of
Naloxone kits - which can save the lives of overdose victims - and a
stepped-up timeline for the opening of three planned supervised
injection sites.

"These are unimaginable tragedies and, make no mistake, an overdose
death is a preventable death," Tory said in a statement.

But for those living and working on the front lines of Toronto's
still-simmering opioid crisis, this has been just one more dark week
among many. Toronto's overdose problem hasn't reached the terrifying
heights of Vancouver, where 101 people died from fentanyl-linked
overdoses in the first four months of this year alone, and 935 people
died in the west coast province from opioid overdoses last year. But
that doesn't mean it isn't bad.

"My own friends have died. My own co-workers have died," said Zoe
Dodd, who works in harm reduction at the South Riverdale Community
Health Centre, just across the river from Moss Park. "It's
devastating."

In 2015, the most recent year for which full data is available, 734
people died in Ontario from an opioid-related cause, according to a
study by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network. That's more than
two people every day; 253 of those died in Toronto.

Most of those deaths, more than 80 per cent, were accidental. And
many, though not all, took place in lower-income neighbourhoods like
Toronto's Moss Park.

Those who work among drug users and vulnerable populations in Toronto
believe the problem is only getting worse.

"What we're hearing is that there are people overdosing regularly on
the street," said Shaun Hopkins, manager of the needle exchange
program at The Works, a city-run harm reduction agency. "It seems to
be increasing."

The spike in deaths has created an atmosphere of terror and grief
among vulnerable populations and those who work with them.

"It's dangerous, man," said a woman in a white blouse, who was sitting
on the curb outside the Moss Park Arena. A man sitting near her,
apparently oblivious to what she was saying, perked up when he heard
"fentanyl." "You need?" he said. "It's dumb because they're killing
their customers," the woman said later.

There are t wo main groups among those overdosing on fentanyl, Dodd
said. Those who smoke, snort or inject it on purpose, and those who
buy drugs, usually, but not exclusively, heroin, that are secretly
laced with it.

Among those who spoke to the National Post in Moss Park on Thursday,
there was uncertainty around where fentanyl is entering the supply
chain. Some suggested it was "greedy" street dealers, while others
said it was from higher up in the distribution chain.

"I think some dealers are doing it because it mimics heroin," Dodd
said. "I think some dealers are just not skilled."

The overdose problem isn't limited to street users. In some ways,
recreational users, from any walk of life, may even be more
vulnerable, Hopkins believes. They're less likely to get a Naloxone
kit beforehand, he said, and less likely to overdose somewhere where
people will recognize the signs quickly and get help.

But among t he street users, the fear - of death, of the unknown - is
already there.

"There's people OD'ing in the hallways here left, right and centre,"
said a recovered addict at a Moss Park apartment building. "People are
dropping dead for $ 20," the price of one hit of heroin, he said.
"It's ridiculous."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt