The 2011 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on Vancouver's Insite clinic clearly established 1) that supervised consumption sites are part of health-care services that should be made accessible to people who use drugs, 2) that these sites contribute to reducing the harms associated with drug use, and 3) that denying access to these sites increases the risk of death and disease. In addition to saving lives every day, these sites act as an essential point of contact for people to access much-needed health-care services that have been proven effective to reduce overdoses, blood-borne infections (hepatitis C and HIV), infections (i.e., skin, soft tissue, heart and blood infections) and other medical complications. They also help connect people who use drugs with social services and support to address housing and food insecurity, mental health issues, trauma and isolation. [continues 595 words]
At the height of a heroin epidemic in Vancouver, British Columbia, Inspector Bill Spearn -- then a rookie cop -- was assigned to a beat in the heart of the crisis. It was 1996, and though he had been responding to overdose after overdose in Downtown Eastside, one of Canada's poorest postal codes, Spearn wanted no part of the harm-reduction measures the city was considering to save the lives of people in addiction. A safe injection site, where drugs could be used under medical supervision, was out of the question: "I thought it would be a big magnet," he told a crowd at Temple University Medical School on Monday night. "I thought it would empower people to use drugs." A few years later, with the debate still raging, he left the neighborhood for another position in the police department. [continues 729 words]
Alberta's supervised consumption sites should be permitted to offer drug testing to help users learn what dangers might be lurking in their illicit narcotics, the province's opioid commission recommended Friday. While questions persist about the effectiveness of fentanyl-sensing strips and other testing devices, providing insight to users on what they plan to inject or ingest will undoubtedly save lives, commission leaders said. "Anytime you can give people a bit more understanding than absolutely none about what's in their drugs, I think that's a positive," Elaine Hyshka, co-chair of the Minister's Opioid Emergency Response Commission, told a news conference downtown. [continues 390 words]
Re: Opioid vending machines won't help B.C.'s addicts. Jeremy Devine, Feb. 14 This piece, written by my classmate, Jeremy Devine, contains misinformation and stigma. I felt compelled to write a response because his views do not reflect mine or those of many of our fellow medical school classmates at the University of Toronto. The article suggests that British Columbia's harm reduction approach is some ill-conceived mistake that jeopardizes the lives of people who use drugs. In fact, Mr. Devine's ideological stance is not based on evidence, and if enacted, could endanger countless lives. [continues 208 words]
Demonstrators demand change to federal drug policies Around 200 drug users and advocates took to Vancouver's streets Tuesday, demanding changes to the federal government's drug policies. In a national day of action, co-ordinated with cities across Canada, demonstrators from the Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs (CAPUD), the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and other groups marched through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside from Victory Square to the B.C. courts building at Hornby and Smithe St. [continues 470 words]
Councillors might still squabble over budgets, but no one questions the fact that the opioid crisis must be solved Mark Tyndall stood before Vancouver City Council at a recent meeting to proselytize for his latest harm-reduction scheme: vending machines to dispense opioids to drug users. "I really wish we could get 50 of these things going in the next year," said Dr. Tyndall, executive medical health director of the BC Centre for Disease Control. "We could supply clean drugs to thousands of people and our overdose numbers would plummet." He plans to start with a pilot project in Vancouver. [continues 634 words]
Committee to look at report next week Sudbury could become home to a safe injection site. The community services committee will hear next week about the prospect of undertaking a feasibility study for a site, which will cost $150,000 to $200,000. Council is being asked to endorse the report. "Through community consultations, under the mental health and compassionate city community priorities, the suggested action includes the study of and possible establishment of a supervised injection site," a staff report indicates. "In addition, the establishment of (a safe injection site) has been prioritized by the community drug strategy as part of the harm reduction pillar area of responsibility." [continues 439 words]
NDP lobbying for safe injection sites Manitoba's official opposition is lobbying for safe injection sites, in Winnipeg and beyond. NDP leader Wab Kinew said the Progressive Conservative government should spend some of the $10.9 million federal dollars it's received to address mental health and addictions to develop such sites, which he believes are needed in Winnipeg and other Manitoba communities. Kinew said the effort is critical to combat a surge in crystal meth and fentanyl abuse. "We know that safe (injection) sites save lives and we know that (addiction) is reaching crisis proportions. So we need to see action," said Kinew. [continues 303 words]
Surveillance intimidates clients, staff at Inner City Health's safe injection site All is not rosy at Ottawa's first sanctioned safe injection site in Lowertown. The executive director of Ottawa Inner City Health, which operates the legal drug-taking site from a trailer at Shepherds of Good Hope, said Ottawa police regularly have a cruiser parked by the steps to the facility. "We are having really significant problems currently and we're hoping we can resolve them," said Wendy Muckle. [continues 735 words]
Vancouver has a history pioneering harm-reduction programs. In 2003, it opened North America's first supervised-injection facility, Insite. In 2014, it moved a prescription-heroin program beyond the confines of an academic study. Now B.C. will launch its most radical drug program yet. It's a plan that one of the province's top doctors says could be a partial solution to the province's opioid crisis. Tentatively scheduled to begin in March 2018, Vancouver will dispense hydromorphone-a synthetic opioid similar to heroin-in a way that, if all goes according to plan, will not require a doctor's visit and possibly not even a prescription for the powerful drug. [continues 729 words]
New tools are helping - but more needs to be done December 2016 is seared into the memory of people who live or work with people from the Downtown Eastside, the epicentre of B.C.'s opioid overdose crisis. "People were going down in alleyways," Karen Ward remembers. "It was a year ago that nine people died in one weekend. "I remember the night when three people died in my building." "BC Ambulance had its busiest day in history, St. Paul's hospital was fully blocked up and we were seeing the highest rates of overdoses that we had seen in the emergency room and at Insite," Dr. Mark Lysyshyn recalls. [continues 605 words]
Where have all the dirty needles gone? Mayor's efforts have made a difference This past Thursday, on a wickedly cold afternoon, I combed the same Yonge-Dundas Sts.-area alleyways where dirty needles have proliferated, particularly since the opening of Toronto's first harm-reduction site. While we saw plenty of drug paraphernalia buried in the snow - orange needle caps, blue gloves, water bottles used as bongs and even remnants of a Naloxone kit - we found no needles. Perhaps the cold contributed to the fact that patrons of The Works on Victoria St. are not shooting up outside. However, Mayor John Tory's cleanup efforts appear to be working. [continues 506 words]
Facing the reality that Hamilton needs at least one supervised injection site is not pleasant. In an ideal world, such a thing might not be needed. People with drug addictions would get counselling and support to break their addiction. Until then, they could ingest drugs in a safe and clean environment. But this isn't an ideal world. We're in a historic and growing street-drug crisis. And those qualities - access to support and a safe environment - are exactly what you get with a supervised injection site (SIS). [continues 410 words]
Lessons are still being digested after a lethal batch of opioids in October put emergency workers to the test The first warning came mid-afternoon on a Thursday in late October, from a client at a downtown Victoria HIV/AIDS and harm-reduction facility. It was the day after "cheque day," when social-assistance payments are issued in B.C. - a period linked to an increase in overdoses and other related harms. But even with that factored in, front-line workers were getting the sense that things were worse than usual. [continues 1201 words]
BIA expresses concern about T.O.'s first harm-reduction site In a mere matter of months it seems the city's first harmreduction site has turned one of Toronto's top tourist areas into a needle disposal site. Mark Garner, CEO and executive director of the Downtown Yonge BIA, says they're seeing an "increased number of needles" within blocks of The Works location on Victoria St. - in YongeDundas Square, in the washrooms of Tim Hortons coffee shops and in laneways. [continues 887 words]
Province widens availability of device for detecting the presence of fentanyl; medical health officer says lives will be saved British Columbia has expanded a program allowing people to check their street drugs for fentanyl before using, becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to facilitate the experimental testing on a wide scale. Health officials have also purchased a device that detects both the presence and quantities of deadly adulterants and can provide a more detailed analysis of not just fentanyl, but other chemically similar drugs being cut into the local supply. [continues 684 words]
Here in Vancouver, it's tempting to praise ourselves for our forward-thinking approaches to illicit drug use. We're home to Insite, the first supervised-injection facility in North America, the success of which paved the way for Health Canada to start approving prospective supervised-injection sites in other cities across the country this year. We're also home to the first and only prescription heroin program on the continent, which has proven how life-changing it can be for a person entrenched in opiate addiction to have access to a clean, regulated supply of drugs. [continues 970 words]
Tory Leader open to new ideas for tackling crisis in B.C., but remains leery of supervised drug-use sites and further decriminalization Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he is trying to keep an open mind on options for dealing with the opioid overdose crisis in British Columbia, but is not backing off key tenets on harm reduction his party pushed in government. That includes reservations about supervised drug-use sites. In an interview on Wednesday ahead of a visit later this month to the Lower Mainland, Mr. Scheer also said prosecuting drug users may steer them into rehabilitation programs that would reduce the risk of overdoses. [continues 591 words]
Coalition of agencies is working to provide 24/7 service, Shelley Williams writes. Access to Medically Supervised Injection Services Edmonton, known as AMSISE, is a coalition of 25 individuals and groups, including people with lived experience, community agencies, medical, academic, and public sector representatives. AMSISE started as a conversation with Edmonton's harm reduction needle distribution service, Streetworks, in January of 2012 and continues to be a community-driven initiative. The focus is on people with severe and chronic addictions, usually homeless, whose chaotic and furtive injection-drug use takes place in unsafe environments, including parks, back alleys, behind dumpsters, along fences, and in agency and public washrooms. Multiple studies have established a direct link between unstable housing and public injecting. Communities will benefit by reducing unsafe needle debris as an unintentional hazard. [continues 438 words]
Students to learn to detect overdoses and reverse them using naloxone kits The University of B.C.'s Alma Mater Society is organizing mass training events to teach students to recognize and reverse drug overdoses amid a devastating provincial health emergency that shows no sign of slowing down. Organizers say 120 students are registered for a two-hour training session Thursday in the student union building at UBC's Vancouver campus, where they'll learn the signs of an overdose, how to use a naloxone kit and the role stigma-free language plays in improving the lives of people who use drugs. [continues 547 words]
Re: "Opioid deaths rising, yet drug use tolerated," letter, Oct. 17. The letter-writer hypothesized that the opioid-overdose epidemic is a consequence of increased use, stemming from our tolerance of drug use, as demonstrated by supervised-injection sites and homeless shelters. In reality, the most significant driver of increased opioid use has been opioid prescriptions. The spike in overdose deaths has been caused by the introduction of fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids into the illicit-drug supply. There has never been a fatal overdose at a supervised-injection site, although many have been averted. There is no evidence that supervised-injection sites encourage, perpetuate or "enable" drug use. On the contrary, injection sites shepherd drug users into detox and treatment. Vancouver's Insite, for example, shares a building with a detox clinic called Onsite. Perhaps we should leave life-and-death theorizing to public-health professionals who are familiar with the literature on the subject. Matthew M. Elrod Victoria [end]
Clinical coordinator at Vancouver's largest supervised injection site says P.A. should open similar facility Prince Albert should open a safe injection site before a bad situation gets worse, says a senior staff member from Canada's first legal facility for injecting drugs. Tim Gauthier, clinical coordinator at Vancouver's Insite, was the keynote speaker at the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region's HIV Education for Change event on Wednesday. He said he was shocked when he heard how many drug users in the Prince Albert area are contracting HIV through needles. The numbers convinced him that the city needs to expand its harm reduction programs. [continues 1807 words]
In more than 35 years as an emergency room physician, Dan Morhaim has learned a lot about opioids. The doctor, Maryland state legislator and faculty member at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said he has had the opportunity to talk to thousands of drug users while treating patients. "It's given me tremendous insight into what goes on and that's informed a lot of the policies that I've promoted," he said. The physician was in Calgary on Wednesday to speak about that approach as part of a University of Calgary School of Public Policy and O'Brien Institute of Public Health event. [continues 396 words]
VANCOUVER - Canada's political leaders must take bold action by joining forces to decriminalize illicit drugs and save lives in the midst of an unprecedented overdose crisis, a leading drug-policy expert says. Donald MacPherson of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's stance on legalizing marijuana to protect youth and stop the flow of profits to organized crime must also apply to drugs that have killed thousands of Canadians. "That's very sad that he can't see the logic that he's using so loudly on cannabis to shift that logic to a far more serious problem," MacPherson said Wednesday. [continues 582 words]
Despite the mounting toll of overdose-related deaths in Ontario, Ottawa's mayor and certain city councillors are trying to close a "pop-up" overdose prevention site in Raphael Brunet Park. The site, staffed by concerned volunteers with Overdose Prevention Ottawa and funded via community donations, provides life-saving harm reduction services for people who use drugs. There have been more than 1,150 visits and no fatalities since it opened five weeks ago. Various political "leaders" in Ottawa have criticized pop-up site organizers and been quick to presume the illegality of the site. The site operates without a federal ministerial exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which means that those using illegal drugs at the site can still be charged for possession when using a service that could mean the difference between life and death. [continues 661 words]
Plans are afoot to give the Moss Park "pop-up" safe-injection tent, established by volunteers just over a month ago as an emergency response to overdose deaths, a permanent future in a nearby building. And the city councillor leading Toronto's overdose crisis response foresees similar facilities - where people can safely inject drugs without fear of arrest - in "three or four" other neighbourhoods in addition to the four sites Toronto will have by the end of October. "The experience in Moss Park demonstrates that safe injection saves lives and works," Councillor Joe Cressy said in an interview Friday. [continues 502 words]
Canada should declare opioid crisis: Doctor The head of Portugal's addictions directorate is urging Canada to declare the opioid overdose crisis a national health emergency. On a tour of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the innercity neighbourhood home to many people who struggle with addictions and mental health, Dr. Joao Goulao said the sheer number of deaths caused by the tainted supply of illicit drugs warrants the declaration. Portugal is often held up as a model of progressive drug reform. Policy changes started in the late 1990s in that country included decriminalizing drugs, something many public health advocates are now advocating for Canada as the only truly effective way to remove the risk of ingesting illicit drugs tainted with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. [continues 243 words]
Discarded needles in the spotlight as Edmonton tackles overdose crisis, safe injection sites Cardboard boxes filled with syringes fill every nook and cranny of the Streetworks office at Boyle Street Community Services. They're stacked on top of cabinets, in corners and underneath a table in the centre of the brightly lit office. Unboxed sharps, wrapped in plastic, are stored in bins along a counter where people who use drugs can pick up clean supplies. The boxes go "wherever we can stuff them," said Marliss Taylor, program manager at Streetworks. Last year, the service distributed a record two-and-a-quarter million syringes through its needle exchange van and exchange sites throughout the city. The goal, Taylor said, is to "flood the market" with clean needles, reducing the health impacts of intravenous drug use. [continues 621 words]
City, province need all the assistance they can get to fight opioid crisis What's a few lives lost in service of protecting bureaucracy? Surely, a little moral grandstanding is worth more than the health and safety of some of our most vulnerable neighbours. This is, basically, what we're being told by those opposing a pop-up Supervised Injection Site at Raphael Brunet Park. Facing an opioid crisis that saw 135 overdoses in June alone, Overdose Prevention Ottawa launched the pop-up site because someone needed to do something. [continues 600 words]
Harm reduction deserves benefit of the doubt I suspect this generation of policy-makers, and the previous one especially, will struggle to explain to their grandchildren just what on earth they thought they were doing about opioid addiction. I don't mean the likes of Donald Trump, who seems to think a get tough policing approach - a "war on drugs," perhaps - might get the job done. I mean smart, reasonably compassionate Canadians, by no means all conservatives, whose worries about safe injection sites in particular look bizarre even today, when people are still using them. [continues 728 words]
Quality checks of illicit drugs is one way, writes Kenneth Tupper. In recent years across B.C., a public-health tragedy has resulted in thousands of preventable deaths from street drugs containing powerful opioids such as fentanyl or its analogs. Toxicity from adulteration has occurred not just in the heroin supply, but also in stimulants, club drugs and counterfeit pills. Border agents and police have tried to reduce or disrupt the supply, but they have had little success in stemming the tide of illicit drug importation and consequent deaths. [continues 751 words]
Dr. Richard Stanwick has been waiting a long time to see the opening of Victoria's first supervised consumption site. Now after more than 11 years, that dream is becoming a reality. Health Canada approved Island Health's application las week for a supervised consumption site at 941 Pandora Ave., to be named the Pandora Community Health and Wellness Centre. The site will offer integrated health services including mental health counselling, a nursing clinic and links to addiction treatment programs. "This is going to save lives If you think of a hub with many spokes, this is but one component that we're adding in terms of trying to address the opioid crisis," said Stanwick, Island Health's chief medical officer. [continues 322 words]
As the opioid crisis worsens, the more we learn about why people are dying. One thing is evident: the drug supply is becoming more toxic. The deadly drug fentanyl is being detected in more than 72 per cent of all overdose deaths in British Columbia. Two years ago, it was found in only 29 per cent; two years before that, just 15 per cent. While untold fatal overdoses have been prevented by first responders, other health-care providers, and peer groups, the increasingly poisonous drug supply is clearly undermining the efforts to reduce overdose deaths. [continues 485 words]
Medical officer wants to offer other forms of consumption The first new supervised injection site in Vancouver since 2003 opened Thursday in the midst of the province's overdose crisis. Starting July 28, a small room off the reception area at Lookout Emergency Aid Society will host an estimated 200 to 300 people a day, seven days a week. "In 1992 (this site) opened as the Living Room, now called the Powell Street Getaway, but it was called the Living Room because many of the folks in this community live in SROs in smaller-unit buildings that don't have a living room to socialize in," said Shayne Williams, the executive director of Lookout. [continues 480 words]
New approach is needed to tackle the overdose epidemic, writes Evan Wood. We're now more than a year into the public health emergency declared by British Columbia's provincial health officer as a result of the province's rising rate of drug overdose deaths. Tragically, the death toll continues to mount. The latest report from the province's coroner shows we're on pace to see more than 1,500 people die of overdoses in 2017 - more than the last two years combined. [continues 764 words]
Vancouver Coastal Health will open the doors to Vancouver's newest supervised injection site on Friday in the Downtown Eastside. The Powell Street Getaway, located near Oppenheimer Park at 528 Powell St., will be the third such facility in Vancouver. The Dr. Peter Centre, an HIV-AIDS clinic, has offered supervised injection along with other services in Vancouver's West End since 2002, while the Downtown Eastside's Insite facility was the first sanctioned supervised injection site in North America when it opened in 2003. [continues 304 words]
Powell Street Getaway opens to help deal with worst health crisis in decades With more than 200 people dead from drug overdoses in Vancouver already this year, health officials hope the city's third federally approved injection site will provide relief from a devastating public health emergency. On Friday, Powell Street Getaway begins operating its new, supervised-injection site seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., after receiving an exemption from Health Canada in May. It opens amid an illicit-drug overdose crisis that killed 640 people in B.C. in the first five months of 2017, up from 347 during the same period last year, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Most involved fentanyl poisoning. [continues 532 words]
With more than 200 people dead from drug overdoses in Vancouver already this year, health officials hope the city's third federally approved injection site will provide relief from a devastating public health emergency. On Friday, Powell Street Getaway begins operating its new supervised-injection site seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., after receiving an exemption from Health Canada in May. It opens amid an illicit-drug overdose crisis that killed 640 people in B.C. in the first five months of 2017, up from 347 during the same period last year, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Most involved fentanyl poisoning. [continues 509 words]
Overdose-prevention sites are making a difference in Vancouver's opioid crisis, say health officials, even in the face of grim figures that suggest the city is on pace to hit 400 deaths in 2017. More than 200 people have died of a suspected drug overdose in Vancouver this year to July 2 - that's almost as many as the 228 deaths recorded in 2016. But officials say the death toll could have been higher. "Based on the analysis of experts, the deaths would have been much worse if those sites hadn't been opened," said Dr. Patricia Daly, Vancouver Coastal Health's chief medical officer. [continues 430 words]
Instead of overlooking the true issue of drug addiction in Chatham-Kent and participating in the stigma that surrounds it, our community must be proactive. Now is our opportunity to help individuals suffering from drug addiction and prevent needless overdoses while simultaneously protecting public health. Last year in Canada there were 2458 opioid related overdose deaths (two every day in Ontario), all which were preventable. Some readers may turn a blind eye to this statistic and argue, "who cares?" and "better for the rest of us". My question for those people is, when did we lose our sense of community? When did we become so individualistic that our judgment of others has clouded our ability to feel empathy? [continues 383 words]
Vancouver drug users' support group spearheaded first safe-injection site in North America A copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms graces a wall around the corner from where a woman lies on the floor as a needle full of heroin is injected into her neck. She rises quickly, sweeps her long brown hair over one shoulder and sits on a chair as a man is handed a needle by another woman also wanting his help at an overdose prevention site located at the office of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. [continues 886 words]
A copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms graces a wall around the corner from where a woman lies on the floor as a needle full of heroin is injected into her neck. She rises quickly, sweeps her long brown hair over one shoulder and sits on a chair as a man is handed a needle by another woman also wanting his help at an overdose prevention site located at the office of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. [continues 720 words]
City's health authority to use drug users' info to lower deaths Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) is rolling out an alert warning system that aims to bring drug overdose and contamination information to drug users faster. The eight-month pilot program will crowd source information from the drug users and relay it to their peers via harm reduction service providers in the community. Health providers currently post warnings whenever authorities receive word from police about a particularly dangerous batch of drugs or when service providers notice a spike in overdoses, but that information often comes a week or two after the fact, said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medial health officer at VCH. [continues 271 words]
Two sites in the Vancouver region have become the first in Canada to receive federal approval to allow users to snort or swallow drugs while under supervision. Until now, supervised drug-consumption sites have been limited to injection drug users. Two sites have been operating in Vancouver for more than a decade, while others have recently received approval in the Vancouver area, Montreal and Toronto. The two sites approved to expand services to non-injectable drugs are in Surrey, south of Vancouver. The public SafePoint supervised-consumption site, located on what's known as the "Surrey Strip," opened three weeks ago. The Quibble Creek Sobering and Assessment Centre began offering supervised consumption for clients one week ago. [continues 565 words]
Government-sanctioned and supported "supervised injection centers," where addicts can bring their illicitly obtained drugs and shoot up with little fear of arrest or a fatal overdose, have been in service in Europe for decades. There's only one in all of North America, though. It's in Canada -- a Vancouver, Canada, center called Insite. Research found that after the center opened in 2003 fatal drug overdoses decreased by 35% in the nearby community. Earlier this month Canadian officials authorized injection centers in Montreal, Toronto and other cities. [continues 688 words]
Advocates support idea of supervised injection and consumption site in St. John's, but unsure if drug users would use it Advocates endorse supervised injection and consumption site in St. John's The number of supervised injection and consumption facilities - often referred to as safe-injection sites - in Canada will soon grow exponentially. Over the last month, a new facility opened in Surrey, B.C., two were approved for Montreal, three more were approved for Toronto and there's one on the way for Ottawa. There's also talk in the addiction treatment and outreach community of Halifax having its own. [continues 875 words]
The number of illicit drug deaths in B.C. continues to be a major cause of concern, with April showing the second-highest recorded numbers in a single month in the province, according to the latest statistics from the BC Coroners Service. Provisional data show that 136 people died as a result of illicit drug use during April, an average of 4.5 each day, and almost double the April 2016 total of 69. The April deaths bring the provisional numbers for the year-to-date to 488, and they show that more than half of all illicit drug deaths involved persons between the ages of 30 and 49 years. Four out of five who died were male. [continues 310 words]
Vancouver will get one new site, while Surrey gets two Health Canada is allowing three additional supervised drug consumption sites to operate in the Lower Mainland - two in Surrey and one in Vancouver. The move fulfils a promise from Jane Philpott, Canada's federal health minister, to support and expedite applications to open more of the sites. At supervised drug consumption sites, nurses are present as people take illicit drugs and can assist in case of an overdose as well as connect people to other health or social services. Insite at 139 E. Hastings St., operated by Vancouver Coastal Health and the Portland Hotel Society, opened in 2003, while a supervised consumption site at Vancouver's Dr. Peter Centre has operated since 2002. [continues 229 words]
Ottawa broadens overdose-prevention program, approving three more locations for Vancouver region, one for Montreal The federal government has approved four more supervised-injection sites - three in the Vancouver region and one in Montreal - in its latest effort to combat an escalating overdose crisis across the country. The new round of approvals brings the number of federally sanctioned sites to nine, significantly expanding what was once a radical intervention limited to a single location in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Such facilities, run by local health agencies, allow users to consume illicit drugs in the presence of health workers who can intervene in the event of an overdose. [continues 585 words]
Six people died from overdoses last week in Vancouver As the number of overdose deaths continues to rise in Vancouver, the city announced it wants to see more fentanyl test strips made available to drug users. The strips test for the presence of fentanyl and a nine-month pilot project at Insite found users who knew their drugs contained fentanyl were more likely to decrease their dose and therefore less likely to overdose. It's an approach that could save more lives, said Mayor Gregor Robertson. "Our residents are literally dying waiting for both treatment options that will get them off dangerous street drugs and save their lives, and immediate interventions like expanded drug testing that reduce overdoses," he said in a press release. [continues 111 words]
