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]
RE: Safe injection sites in Hamilton Drug addiction is a major problem. Just look at the statistics. Safe injection sites are all about health care and saving lives. Why not make it part of our health-care system and set them up in the hospitals? Bruce Scott, Burlington [end]
Canada is currently in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis. The two most western provinces and territories - British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories - have been hit especially hard, likely due to their relative proximity to China, where much of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl is produced. According to Government of Canada statistics from 2016, B.C. and Yukon each had more than 15 opioid overdoses per 100,000 people, while Alberta and N.W.T. each had between 10 and 14.9 overdoses per 100,000 people. [continues 514 words]
Mayor backs scheme, says time to get it out of alleyways and off railway lands A decision on whether to authorize a supervised injection site in Hamilton's core is expected to be made Dec. 4 by the Board of Health. The proposed site would be located somewhere between Main Street East and Barton Street East and bordered by Queen Street North and Wellington Street North. "It's high time we tried to get these injection issues out of the alleyways and the railway lines and make sure people who are doing drugs, do it safely," said Mayor Fred Eisenberger. "People are drug addicted and that's just the reality. Turning our mind away from that or sticking our head in the sand is delusional." [continues 785 words]
To the editor, Re: Providing drugs would curb crime, Letters, Nov. 9. The question is not when our government will decriminalize personal possession and provide a safe clean drug source, like we do for alcohol and soon to be marijuana, but how many more families will be devastated with the loss of a loved one before a government is brave enough to value lives over votes. In Portugal, possession is not a criminal offence if you have a 10-day personal supply in your possession. By decriminalizing personal possession, we can then start to rid the negative stigma that is associated with addiction. [continues 208 words]
Users fed their poisons - but safely - in public park It's the perfect setup for hard-core addicts. There's a special tent for crack smokers. There's another tent to provide safe injections of illegal drugs like heroin, fentanyl and opiates and handouts of Naloxone (an antidote for opioid overdoses) - the tent now winterized with the generous assistance of the health ministry. Overseeing the "military-grade equipment" that provides heating and lighting are two staff with the ministry's emergency medical assistance team (EMAT). Cost is unknown at this point because the "deployment is ongoing," says Laura Gallant, spokesman for Health Minister Eric Hoskins. [continues 623 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]
To say that Canada is in the midst of opioid crisis is, tragically, a gross understatement. This is an emergency. Some 3,000 people, or about eight a day, are expected to die of opioid overdoses this year in Canada. Another 16 others are hospitalized each day. To put that in perspective, 44 people died in the SARS epidemic of 2003. So Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor's announcement last week listing new measures to fight the opioid crisis could not have come soon enough. But, distressingly, as bold as the new measures are, they don't go far enough to ward off the epidemic of deaths caused by these highly addictive drugs. [continues 587 words]
When 74 percent of San Francisco voters last year backed legalizing the adult recreational use of marijuana statewide, the idea was to make it easier to buy and smoke pot - a substance that has never been that hard to buy or smoke in San Francisco anyway. Tell that to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The Keystone Cops of Cannabis have spent countless hours over endless committee meetings in recent weeks, devising ways to dramatically limit where people can buy and sell marijuana once the substance becomes legal for recreational use statewide on Jan. 1. [continues 1120 words]
Staff at Revelstoke Secondary School now have a new tool to keep students safe. The high school received two Naloxone kits at the end of September. Naloxone is used to counteract the effects of an opioid overdose. With a focus on student safety and well-being, principal Greg Kenyon said that getting the kits was an obvious decision, despite the school being low-risk for drug overdoses. "It's just another thing we do and have," said Kenyon. "It's like we're trained for responding to anaphylaxis and we're trained now to respond to Naloxone and administering that." [continues 635 words]
Editor: The question is not when our government will decriminalize personal possession and provide a safe clean drug source, like we do for alcohol and soon to be marijuana, but how many more families will be devastated with the loss of a loved one before a government is brave enough to value lives over votes. In Portugal, possession is not a criminal offence if you have a 10 day personal supply in your possession. If it is more than that then it's treated as trafficking. By decriminalizing personal possession, we can then start to rid the negative stigma that is associated with addiction. [continues 210 words]
Canada's response to the opioid crisis has been fragmented and marginally effective at best. We deserve a better approach, and the answers are out there. Other countries are effectively dealing with the issue and Canada should be more open to learning from them. There are several key steps we can take to ensure Canadians with addiction can lead healthier, happier and more productive lives. First, we need to recognize this is actually a crisis. Do you remember SARS and how it impacted every Canadian with a focused response from our public health teams? Forty-four Canadians died from SARS. How about AIDS at its peak in 1995? We all were aware of the crisis and as Canadians we worked together diligently to help. That year about 1,400 people died from AIDS. Compare this to over 2,400 Canadians dying from opioid overdoses in 2016 and the number likely to double in 2017. [continues 625 words]
Years ago, when Justin Trudeau stepped onto a platform in a Vancouver park and proclaimed through a cloud of sweet-smelling haze that a federal Liberal government would legalize marijuana, there was much excitement within the cannabis community. With last week's announcement by Trudeau's provincial Liberal cousins, the realities of draconian regulation in Ontario have resulted in the crushing disappointment of those long-forgotten high hopes. For recreational users, smoking will only be permitted in private residences. Puffing at work, on university campuses, on patios, sidewalks or parks, will all remain prohibited. [continues 442 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]
OK comes as city, province spar over unsanctioned tent nearby A trailer at the Shepherds of Good Hope became Ottawa's third legal supervised injection site late Monday. Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins announced in a news release that the federal government has approved an exemption permitting Inner City Health Ottawa to operate a sanctioned injection site in the trailer. It becomes the fifth such site funded by the province. Hoskins said the province would provide nearly $500,000 in operating funds. [continues 738 words]
Conditions can push people to commit crimes: Study Releasing people on bail on the condition they do not go to the Downtown Eastside sets them up for failure, according to research from three Canadian universities. Judges often order people on bail to avoid certain "no-go zones" or "red zones" in an effort to prevent them from committing crimes. But it, in fact, does the exact opposite, says SFU geography professor Nicholas Blomley. "These are people who have yet to be found guilty of an offence," he said. [continues 391 words]
Structure is meant to be temporary solution as temperatures drop, while Toronto officials race to get indoor location approved Toronto's illegal, activist-run overdose-prevention site in the city's Moss Park now has the use of an insulated, heated, military-style medical tent, complete with a generator - all courtesy of the provincial government. The khaki tent, which measures about three by eight metres, was erected Thursday by Ontario's Emergency Medical Assistance Team, a unit usually deployed for community evacuations or "mass-casualty events." [continues 860 words]
Government will work with harm-reduction workers operating pop-up site Ontario is dispatching its Emergency Medical Assistance Team to set up a tent in Moss Park to provide a heated and insulated space for safe injections. "This is an overdose crisis. People are dying and, today, Minister Eric Hoskins and the Ontario government have stepped up," Councillor Joe Cressy said Wednesday night. The tent will be set up Thursday and replace a temporary site run by the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society (TOPS). The ministry will work with TOPS staff, Cressy said. [continues 517 words]
Talks to move Toronto's illegal popup supervised drug-use site inside a nearby homeless centre have failed, but the harm-reduction activists who have been setting up their tents in an east-end park every evening say they plan to stay put. The crowdfunded, volunteer-driven Toronto Harm Reduction Alliance (THRA) has operated its controversial pop-up site in Moss Park near Sherbourne and Queen Streets since August, with tacit approval from police and city officials amid a growing number of opioid overdose deaths. [continues 706 words]
The City of Toronto and the province are asking the federal Minister of Health for the "immediate approval" of a proposed indoor supervised drug-use site at an east-end homeless centre where an illegal outdoor site has been operating for months. In a letter to Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor dated Oct. 31, Toronto Mayor John Tory and Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins say the illegal site, set up in Moss Park near Sherbourne Street and Queen Street East, has saved many lives since it was launched in August by reversing overdoses in a neighbourhood that had been hit by an increase in such deaths. [continues 660 words]
