Plan May Need Boost in Police Presence, Cop Association Boss Says Neighbourhoods that end up with supervised drug-injection sites may need more cops, the head of Toronto's police union warned. Toronto's chief medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, is expected to release a report Monday on drug injection sites. A source confirmed McKeown will recommend a pilot project of three to five supervised drug-injection sites in the city. Toronto Public Health refused to discuss the pilot project and said McKeown was unavailable for an interview. [continues 465 words]
With overdose deaths at record levels, Toronto to offer service for users in multiple locations Toronto is moving ahead with plans to become the second Canadian city to open controversial supervised injection sites for drug users, the Star has learned. A report from the city's medical officer of health, to be released Monday, will outline the need for multiple locations where drug use is concentrated and will be embedded in existing health services. The proposed locations are also expected to be announced Monday. [continues 1105 words]
The next new idea in drug policy reform is a good idea, writes columnist Jonathan Martin The Seattle area is the nation's incubator for the anti-war on drugs. Well before pot became legal, the nation's first needle exchange opened in these parts in 1988. The 1811 Eastlake housing project, which allows alcoholics to keep drinking, helped make Seattle's "Housing First" model official federal policy. And a Seattle police social-services diversion for low-level drug dealers is being copied around the country. [continues 742 words]
Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick wants the city to be the first in the U.S. to offer a supervised injection facility, where heroin users would be able to shoot up under the care of a nurse. The facility is one piece of a comprehensive new approach he wants Ithaca to take against the scourge of addiction. A comprehensive approach following the four pillars of treatment, harm reduction, public safety and prevention will be announced officially Wednesday, when Myrick and the Municipal Drug Policy Committee unveils "The Ithaca Plan: A Public Health and Safety Approach to Drugs and Drug Policy." [continues 1542 words]
OTTAWA- The Liberal government should implement prison-based needle and syringe programs to address rates of HIV and hepatitis C estimated to be 10 to 30 times higher than in the general population, proponents say. Emily van der Meulen of Ryerson University, the lead author of a recent study, said she wants to see the government review evidence on the effectiveness of programs that have operated in countries like Switzerland for more than 20 years. "I'm hopeful that the government will look to this evidence, as well as to our recent research report," she said. [continues 333 words]
A group of volunteers plans to give away clean syringes to drug addicts Saturday afternoon at the Santa Ana Civic Center, launching a weekly effort - the first of its kind in Orange County - to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. Both diseases are commonly spread among users who share needles along with the "cookers" and "cottons" used to dissolve and filter drugs. Sterile supplies are scarce in Orange County, said state health officer Dr. Karen Smith. Volunteers from the nonprofit Orange County Needle Exchange Program will set up behind a folding table near City Hall in an area where hundreds of homeless people gather. [continues 423 words]
OTTAWA - The Liberal government should implement prison-based needle and syringe programs to address rates of HIV and hepatitis C estimated to be 10 to 30 times higher than in the general population, proponents say. Emily van der Meulen of Ryerson University, the lead author of a recent study, said she wants to see the government review evidence on the effectiveness of programs that have operated in countries like Switzerland for more than 20 years. "I'm hopeful that the government will look to this evidence, as well as to our recent research report," she said. [continues 187 words]
I've been an emergency room physician for more than 30 years. Every shift, I see broken legs, lacerations, cases of pneumonia and more. On the surface, none appears related to the rising rates of drug addiction and crime plaguing our society. But they are. Recently, I treated a man with an abscess on his inner thigh about the size of cantaloupe. We had complications trying to give him an IV with pain medicine because years of drug abuse had scarred his veins. He was clearly a drug user with an addiction problem, but his medical record will read only "abscess." [continues 572 words]
Researchers hope Liberals' 'evidence-based' approach will endorse safe-injection programs After years of pushing for safe drug-injection programs in Canadian jails, health advocates say mounting evidence and a new government in Ottawa present a chance to finally make it happen. In a report published Wednesday, researchers in Toronto provide a framework for the introduction of what they call "prison-based needle and syringe programs" in Canada - programs that the authors argue are sorely needed in provincial and federal jails to address levels of HIV and Hepatitis C infections that are "astronomically" high compared with those in the general population. [continues 723 words]
Nearly 47,000 Americans died from a drug overdose in 2014 - more than from gunshot wounds or car crashes. In Maryland, the governor's office has defined the problem as an "epidemic ... destroying lives." Indeed, heroin deaths alone have increased by 186 percent from 2010 to 2015 in the state. Not only are drug-related deaths on the rise, so are the associated harms, including: drug-related crime and violence, the spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C and the financial burden for taxpayers who shoulder the costs of health care and criminal justice. [continues 638 words]
Public Health Workers Worry That Police Involvement in Street-Outreach Pilot Will Discourage Drug Users From Accessing Life-Saving Services When word got out in mid-December that undercover police officers had arrested two men accessing Toronto Public Health's (TPH) needle exchange program, The Works, TPH's own harm reduction workers scrambled to warn the drug user community. Harm reduction workers and drug users alike had essentially been left in the dark about TPH's new pilot, the Outreach Project, which involves a partnership with police from four Toronto divisions (11, 12, 13, and 14) and prisoner rights group the John Howard Society. [continues 837 words]
VANCOUVER - Health Canada has granted approval for a second safe injection site in Vancouver - 14 years after the HIV-AIDS treatment facility began allowing patients to shoot up their own illicit drugs. The Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation has run a safe-injection program since 2002, and for several years mistakenly believed its patients were exempt from Canada's drug laws. The approval of an application on Friday grants the Dr. Peter Centre a two-year licence, meaning patients can continue injecting their own drugs under the supervision of a nurse without anyone being charged under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. [continues 570 words]
CAMBRIDGE - Here in a nameless brick building, people addicted to drugs come to get what they need. Not heroin or other narcotics, but the accessories - and more. A smiling receptionist takes back used syringes and hands out sterile ones to those who register (no names needed; each client gets a number). A framed placard advises on needle selection. Members can also help themselves to tourniquets, cotton swabs, bandages, and other supplies. It may look like complicity, but the AIDS Action Committee's needle exchange in Central Square is no rogue operation. Decades of research show that needle exchanges prevent disease, do not increase drug use, and sometimes coax far-gone addicts into treatment. [continues 1257 words]
Four people will die today from an opioid overdose in Massachusetts. Tomorrow, if the average from 2015 remains unchanged, another four souls - who may at this very moment be reading this article - will also lose their lives with the push of a plunger. For the new year to look any different from the last, it has become clear that uncomfortable measures will need to be taken in order to end the overdose crisis. Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello has shown a willingness to do just that by taking on Big Pharma and offering treatment instead of jail time, as has Governor Charlie Baker in his willingness to go up against the medical establishment to curb the overprescription of opioids. [continues 727 words]
Drug Given to People WHO Have Overdosed on Opioids Has Prevented at Least 23 Deaths in a Year WATERLOO REGION - At least 23 people were saved in one year thanks to a regional program that offers a drug to reverse the effects of an accidental overdose. Reducing preventable deaths from opioid overdose is the goal of the naloxone distribution program, which trains people how to give the drug and supplies them with a kit. "Participant education and training is an important component," said Kathy McKenna, a nurse at Region of Waterloo Public Health. [continues 282 words]
Medical researcher says three facilities in Toronto and two in Ottawa would save money and help reduce the incidence of diseases Opening five supervised injection sites in Ontario makes financial sense, says a medical researcher who based his study on a Vancouver clinic where drug users shoot up under supervision. Ahmed Bayoumi of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto said establishing facilities such as Insite in that city and in Ottawa would save money and reduce the incidence of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C. [continues 458 words]
It's been just a little more than two years since Donna May, the mother of a dead drug addict, came to Ottawa to plead for a safe injection site in the nation's capital. Her message couldn't have been more clear or more heartbreaking. "Mine is a hard story to tell. If you have already formed an opinion, based on what you've been told, or educated by what your community leaders have guided you to believe, I used to be one of you," she said back in October 2013. [continues 597 words]
Less Expensive Than Hep C Drugs Opening two supervised injection sites in Ottawa would save the health system money, new analysis suggests. Ahmed Bayoumi, a medical researcher with St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, called supervised injection sites a "good investment in health dollars." He is among authors of a report looking at the potential cost-effectiveness of supervised injection facilities in Toronto and Ottawa. The study was published Monday in the journal Addiction. Bayoumi and others updated analysis they conducted in 2012 in light of dramatic new treatment for hepatitis C. Drugs that treat and even cure hepatitis C are now available, but they are costly, which means strategies to reduce the spread of hepatitis C by injection drug users could save the health system substantial money, Bayoumi said. [continues 407 words]
Cost-Effective Findings Could Boost Montreal's Plan for Project A new Canadian study about safe-injection sites for intravenous drug users concludes that they are cost-effective to the health-care system - an argument that is likely to be advanced as Montreal takes steps to open four such facilities in the city. Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto carried out an analysis that compared the projected costs of maintaining supervised injection sites over a period of 20 years with the potential savings to the health system in averted HIV and hepatitis C infections. The researchers' estimates were conservative, as they did not include other infections associated with intravenous drug use and the costs involved in treating and hospitalizing patients suffering from overdoses. [continues 416 words]
Three Supervised Facilities in Toronto, Two in Ottawa Would Be Worth the Money A new study bolsters the case for opening five safe injection sites in Ontario, including three in Toronto, by showing they would be more cost effective than previous research has projected. Because of a recent surge in the cost of treating hepatitis C, there is now a better economic case to be made for preventing the spread of the potentially deadly virus through the sharing of needles, according to a paper published today in the journal Addiction. [continues 796 words]
