More than 50 community leaders say supervised injection services are needed in Toronto to save lives and are urging communities to focus on facts over fear. "I call on all Torontonians to learn more about this issue. If you learn about it, I believe you'll support it," said former mayor Barbara Hall, who was joined at a city hall news conference by predecessors John Sewell and David Crombie along with a dozen other leading health officials, community and religious leaders. [continues 545 words]
Dead people don't recover. That's the working principle behind harm reduction: Avoiding the ultimate harm that could befall drug addicts by facilitating lesser harms, primarily via aiding and abetting in the consumption of those drugs in a safer environment. The idea is somewhat counterintuitive. It also puts the addict at the centre of a radical social policy that doesn't always give sufficient consideration to the broader community that will be affected. Good intentions can lead to bad consequences. [continues 787 words]
Any solution to the numerous problems associated with the injection of illegal drugs is bound to be imperfect. In a perfect world, no one would be abusing intravenous drugs. But in the messier reality we inhabit, people are overdosing and dying in disturbing numbers while communities are degraded by the consequences of a look-away, not-my-problem approach to drug use. Three health centres across downtown Toronto are planning to open supervised injection programs, providing what is described as a safe and hygienic environment where addicts can inject powerful, illegally obtained drugs such as heroin and fentanyl under a nurse's watchful eye. The city's medical officer of health is strongly supportive. So are others across the country. So is the federal government. [continues 290 words]
Singapore's uncompromising stance against drugs is the reason it has stayed relatively drug-free, with arrested drug abusers comprising less than 0.1 per cent of the country's population. Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Lee said this on Monday at a meeting of international delegates, at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna, Austria. The event is a preparatory meeting for the upcoming UN General Assembly Special Session on the world's drug problem next month, when members will set goals for global drug control in the next decade. [continues 550 words]
Downplay Odds of Many Users Taking Advantage More than 12 years ago, Insite began offering needle drug users a sterile, safe environment on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Hundreds of people have overdosed there since; none have died. Now Toronto may be headed down the same road. A report from the city 's medical officer of health, David McKeown, released Monday, envisions three safe-injection sites in areas of high drug use concentration, incorporated ( unlike Insite) into existing health services: at Toronto Public Health's The Works clinic, at Yonge and Dundas; the Queen- West Central Toronto Health Centre at Queen and Bathurst; and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre in Leslieville. [continues 674 words]
I've been an emergency physician in downtown Toronto for more than 30 years, and I regularly see patients with health problems related to the injection of illicit drugs. The problems might be caused by the drug itself, such as an overdose, but often the woes I see are caused by the use of dirty or shared needles. These include abscesses, heart damage, and viral infections such as hepatitis C or HIV. These complications not only make users ill, they also cost a lot of money and health-care resources to treat; and they pose a danger to others by furthering the spread of infectious diseases. [continues 628 words]
Overdoses kill more than 200 people a year in city, so federal permission expected to be forthcoming Toronto is joining the growing list of Canadian cities - including Ottawa and Montreal - that plan to set up safe-injection sites. Safe-injection sites provide a place for people to take illicitly obtained drugs while supervised by nurses or other health care staff in order to prevent overdoses. They typically also provide sterile injection equipment. As it stands, there are more than 90 safe-injection sites worldwide, but only two legal sites in Canada, both in Vancouver. According to local media reports, Toronto's top health official is planning on following suit, opening "multiple" facilities, also called supervised-injection or supervised-consumption sites. [continues 283 words]
The evidence is in: supervised sites allowing users to inject illegal drugs save lives. But they do much more than that. Providing a secure place for people to use heroin and other injection drugs leads to cleaner, safer neighbourhoods. It boosts overall public health by reducing the spread of blood-borne infections, such as HIV and hepatitis C. And it saves money by lowering the huge cost associated with treating such conditions. In short, there's every reason to proceed with a plan to open three supervised injection sites in Toronto. [continues 651 words]
The Sandy Hill Community Health Centre is planning to consult the public this spring about adding a safe-injection site to its building at Rideau and Nelson streets, says the man who runs the Centre's drug-treatment programs. "We're basically on the same path as Toronto," Rob Boyd said Monday morning after news that Toronto's board of health is going to consider three specific sites - two at community health centres and one run by Toronto's public health unit itself. [continues 695 words]
Toronto is joining the growing list of Canadian cities - including Ottawa and Montreal - that plan to set up safe-injection sites. Safe-injection sites provide a place for people to take illicitly obtained drugs, while supervised by nurses or other health care staff in order to prevent overdoses. They typically also provide sterile injection equipment. As it stands, there are more than 90 safe-injection sites worldwide, but only two legal sites in Canada, both in Vancouver. Local media reports say Toronto's top health official is planning on following suit, opening "multiple" facilities, also called supervised-injection or supervised-consumption sites. [continues 251 words]
ITHACA, N.Y. - A bustling economy. Record-low unemployment. A ballooning heroin problem. That's how Mayor Svante Myrick describes Ithaca, where he hopes to open the nation's first safe injection facility - a place where heroin users can shoot their illegal drugs under medical supervision and without fear of arrest. His proposal, part of a plan to address drug abuse in the college town of 31,000 in central New York, is not a novel idea. Safe injection sites, which also connect clients to treatment programs and offer emergency care to reverse overdoses, exist in 27 cities in other parts of the world. Some have been around for decades. [continues 592 words]
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]
