US: Connelly: Lawsuit seeks to block King County vote on safe injection sites - seattlepi.com Found: Tue Aug 22 14:21:02 2017 PDT Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 2017 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Website: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408 Author: Joel Connelly A lawsuit was filed Monday, challenging and seeking to block a public vote on Initiative 27, which seeks to outlaw the opening of supervised consumption spaces, health facilities where people use drugs in a safe environment with access to treatment. [continues 661 words]
Overdose crisis linked to prohibition, expert says Vancouver In 2001, Doug MacPherson developed the City of Vancouver's Four Pillars drug strategy, a policy that emphasized concepts like harm reduction (such as safe injection sites) as well as addictions prevention, treatment and drug trafficking enforcement. The deadly overdose crisis shows no sign of stopping. Earlier this week, Vancouver reported that at 232 deaths in 2017, the city has already surpassed 2016's entire total. MacPherson is now turning his attention to a "total rethink" of Canadian drug strategy and is calling for what he calls "the legal regulation" of all drugs. Metro spoke to MacPherson about political risk and what it takes to move controversial policies into the mainstream. MacPherson was recently awarded the Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy from Simon Fraser University. He'll deliver a lecture on drug policy after receiving the award on Oct. 10. [continues 463 words]
It's little more than a table with three chairs and three yellow needle-disposal boxes crammed into a corner of Toronto Public Health's downtown addiction clinic. But it's now a front line in the city's fight against a wave of opioid overdose deaths. At 4 p.m. on Monday, Toronto opened its first officially sanctioned supervised drug-use site. The facility will allow those addicted to heroin or other substances to get high under the watchful eye of a nurse who can intervene in the event of overdoses, which are rising as street drugs are increasingly likely to be laced with the potent opioid fentanyl. [continues 546 words]
Temporary space a stopgap until the three planned permanent sites open in fall Toronto has taken a controversial step to combat overdose deaths, opening its first city-run site for people to use illegal intravenous drugs. "It provides a safe environment for people who are going to use drugs," Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's chief public health official, told reporters outside the building at Victoria and Dundas Sts. that already houses The Works needle-exchange program. "We know both through research and lived experience it's highest risk for overdose and deaths when people . . . use alone," she said. "We provide a safe environment, a supervised environment for people to use their drugs safely, so they minimize harm to themselves." [continues 439 words]
Councillor: Not the answer The city's first temporary supervised injection site has opened its doors. But Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti slammed the move as a way to "legitimize" drug use. Housed at Toronto Public Health's building at 277 Victoria St., the site began operation Monday morning after receiving Health Canada's blessing on Sunday. It is just a simple room with tables and the required receptacles to safely dispose of needles. There's also an area for drug users to rest behind a privacy screen. [continues 326 words]
A good first step It may be temporary and jerry-rigged and running on reduced hours, but Toronto finally has its first safe injection site up and running. Kudos go to both Toronto Public Health for announcing the initiative last week and Ottawa for fast-tracking approval for the location. The site at Victoria and Dundas Sts. opened its doors on Monday afternoon. It will be staffed by two nurses, two counsellors and a manager to ensure that addicts have a safe, sterile place to inject illegal drugs and don't die from an overdose. [continues 416 words]
232 people have died so far this year The number of suspected overdose deaths in Vancouver this year has already surpassed last year's total. So far this year, the city has seen 232 overdose deaths and is on pace for more than 400 deaths. In all of 2016, there were 231 overdose deaths in Vancouver. Provincially, 780 people died in the first six months of 2017. In 2016, it took until November to reach 755 deaths, at the time an alarmingly high number. [continues 267 words]
Toronto has sent an open invitation to every drug addict in the province to congregate in one of the three neighbourhoods slated to host safe injection sites, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti says. The experience in Vancouver has been one of drug dealers openly selling their products and users freebasing in the streets around injection clinics, he said. "There were more people on the streets using drugs than in what they call safe injection sites," Mammoliti said, predicting public outrage within a year of Toronto's safe injection sites opening this fall. [continues 285 words]
Toronto's first official interim safe injection site is set to open as early as Monday in the Yonge-Dundas Sts. area. The site is a precursor to three permanent Toronto sites and is being fast-tracked following a rise in drug overdose deaths throughout the region. Health Canada said Sunday in a news release that Toronto's application for an interim injection site was approved after passing required inspections. Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, explains what clients and the public can expect. [continues 527 words]
Downtown site a good start, but advocates want more done to tackle opioid crisis Health Canada has approved the immediate opening of a downtown supervised safe injection site to combat the opioid crisis in Toronto, but it's not nearly enough, according to one of the founders of an unsanctioned pop-up site at Moss Park. "It's not a crisis response," registered nurse Leigh Chapman said in an interview. "I think it's great that they have accelerated the opening of the sanctioned safe injection sites," Chapman said, adding that it would be useful for the site to have extended hours. "It would be great if they could expand their hours and have much longer hours than we have," Chapman said. [continues 321 words]
Toronto's first safe drug site set to open Toronto's first official interim safe injection site is set to open as early as Monday in the Yonge-Dundas Sts. area. The site is a precursor to three permanent Toronto sites, and is being fast-tracked following a rise in drug overdose deaths throughout the region. Health Canada said Sunday in a news release that Toronto's application for an interim injection site was approved after passing required inspections. Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, explains what clients and the public can expect. [continues 525 words]
THERE are no plans to open a supervised injection site in Winnipeg, a spokeswoman for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said in the wake of Toronto opening its first city-run space for people to inject illegal drugs. Supervised injection sites are legal facilities where drug users are able to use intravenous substances under medical supervision. They have been a controversial harm-reduction strategy since the first North American site opened in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 2003. Toronto opened its first official site Monday. [continues 416 words]
Harm reduction workers follow correct belief relationships more important than rules Eight days of silence gives one sufficient time to engage in some of the contemplation and reading necessary for moving about more wisely in this world with our ever-increasing set of wicked problems. It also provides the space for taking in a book or three, a practice I neglect during my routinized day to day. So I have returned home from my retreat richer than ever, gleaning wisdom from both the silent and the written word. [continues 626 words]
Re: "Consumption sites save lives," editorial, Aug. 9. Drug addiction is one of many problematic symptoms seen in our society today due to unfulfilled basic human needs such as love, community and holistic wellness. It is shameful to call a supervised drug-injection site a "health and wellness centre." As a health and wellness professional, I ask: How does providing a place for suffering, vulnerable persons to poison themselves have anything to do with health or wellness? Wellness is the "active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life," a "positive approach to living." Health is defined as a "state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." [continues 88 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]
Toronto's Board of Health or drug cartel? Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti asked that question in a tongue-in-cheek statement released Monday where he slammed the board for allowing a pop-up supervised injection site to operate in Moss Park over the weekend. Drug cartels coordinate use of narcotics, establish territory and "silence politicians," he said in a statement. "If you thought that those descriptions only apply to drug cartels, then you're in for a rude awakening," Mammoliti said. The veteran city councillor, who has been a vocal opponent of the city's move to open three supervised injection sites, says there will be consequences for allowing the pop-up site to exist. [continues 234 words]
After advocates for safe drug injection sites in Toronto set up an unlicensed, "pop up" one in a tent in Moss Park on Saturday, police announced they wouldn't close it down. Their argument was that while such a facility can attract the drug trade, the recent crisis in drug overdose deaths, as the city scrambles to set up legal safe injection sites, is of more pressing importance. We understand their argument but, respectfully, we don't agree. One tent in a park is symbolism, not an effective plan of action. Turning a blind eye to an unlicensed injection site, in our view, undermines the rule of law. [continues 278 words]
T.O.'s top doc says move is in response to opioid crisis Toronto's will open three "interim" supervised injection sites this week. Dr. Eileen da Villa, the city's chief medical officer of health, confirmed Monday that the opening of the three sites has been accelerated in response to the opioid overdose crisis. The move comes a little over a week after the city said it would speed up the development of the sites from their original mid-fall scheduled opening. At that time, city staff were directed to open them as soon as possible. [continues 248 words]
Move follows weekend opening of unsanctioned site in Moss Park After an unsanctioned safe-injection site opened in a downtown park over the weekend, Toronto Public Health has announced it will open an interim site where people can shoot their drugs in a safe environment. The interim supervised injection services will be located at a site for which (federal) exemptions have already been provided, Dr. Eileen de Villa, the city's Medical Officer of Health, said Monday. "We want to make sure that we're providing these interim supervised-injection services in a manner that's safe for the clients and of course for our staff." [continues 428 words]
British Columbia recorded 935 deaths due to drug overdoses in 2016 and the number is projected to surpass 1,400 by the end of 2017. Approaches to this epidemic include the antidote Naloxone, injection sites, education etc. These are fine, but do not address the real problem, which is reducing drug availability by reducing the number of dealers and suppliers. Singapore has enacted laws which include capital punishment for dealers and suppliers of illicit drugs. Draconian, yes, but if we as a society have to choose between the deaths of dealers who knowingly destroy lives and families, or deaths of thousands of our young adults, the decision is a no-brainer. [continues 135 words]
