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]
More supervised injection sites planned as opioid-overdose numbers skyrocket The construction trailer that houses the illegal, volunteer-run overdose prevention site in Toronto's Moss Park is about to open for another evening, as a dozen drug users, some clearly anxious for their fix, cluster around its muddy entrance in the cold. Activist and harm-reduction worker Zoe Dodd, named one of Toronto Life magazine's most influential people last year, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and R&B star the Weeknd, unloads an extra box of anti-overdose naloxone kits from her beat-up sedan. [continues 934 words]
City's fatality rate is now nearly double Ontario average, fuelling more concern Opioid-related deaths in Hamilton have soared more than 80 per cent in one year. From January to October, 75 Hamilton residents died from an opioid overdose in 2017 compared to 41 during the same period the year before. "Opioids are continuing to have a devastating impact on individuals, families, and the community," Hamilton's medical officer of health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said in a statement Friday. "The sustained trend of rising opioid related deaths, which are preventable, in Hamilton is very concerning." [continues 437 words]
The war on drugs has never been won by anyone, anywhere. But Jason Kenny figures that it can be won here in Alberta by stricter law enforcement and by limiting safe injection sites. He is against safe injection sites, because in his conservative way of thinking, they promote the use of drugs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Safe injection sites help save lives. On the street, drug addicts can be exposed to bad batches of drugs or they can be thrown in jail for possession of illegal drugs. I'm quite sure addicts are not happy they have to resort to safe injection sites to get their fix. And by going to safe injection sites, they are not demonized for being addicts and they can go to these places so that they can get off their dependence on drugs for good. Dennis Wanechko, Leduc [end]
WATERLOO REGION - Waterloo Region plans to look further into pursuing three supervised injection sites, following a study that found a need and support in the community for the service to combat fatal opioid overdoses. Sites are proposed for the central cores of Kitchener and Galt, and a third spot to be determined that could be a mobile unit. "In Waterloo Region, we know that overdose is on the rise," said Grace Bermingham, regional manager of information, planning and harm reduction. Bermingham presented findings from the first phase of a feasibility study on supervised injection sites to a regional committee on Tuesday. The second phase involves identifying potential locations and further consultations with people who live, work or go to school near a proposed site. [continues 654 words]
United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney said he would be opposed to expanding Safe Consumption Sites across the province if elected premier. "Helping addicts inject poison into their bodies is not a solution to the problem of addiction," he said bluntly while visiting Lethbridge on Wednesday. Disagreeing with local Lethbridge government, aid organizations and law enforcement officers who have championed the site, Kenney went on to state he did not feel safe consumption or injection sites work, as evidenced by the spike in opioid overdose deaths in Vancouver despite having a safe injection site in that city for over a decade. [continues 142 words]
How do we get out of this box? It may be time to follow Portugal in legalizing drugs British Columbia has a $250,000-a-day drug habit that is spiralling out of control - and it's not supported by the Downtown Eastside street bazaar. Rather, it's the opioid substitution program. The province now spends more than $90 million a year on "treatment" and health services for participants of the drug-maintenance program - that's more than it provides for legal aid. [continues 666 words]
An emergency situation demands an emergency response. When people are trapped in a burning house or wrecked car, the priority should be getting them out alive first, and then worrying about damaged property or blocked roadways. This is how people in Waterloo Region need to understand the horrific and rising number of opioid overdoses ravaging their community. We are, collectively, facing an emergency. People are dying in staggeringly high numbers. Others are suffering terribly. For all their sakes but also for the welfare of this region, we must offer help - even as we work out the details. [continues 419 words]
A new clinic giving access to a drug similar to prescription heroin is likely heading to Edmonton's inner city. Alberta Health is planning two clinics as a pilot project, one each in Edmonton and Calgary. Treatment would require opioid addicts to visit the clinic several times each day to inject drugs supplied by the clinic. It means users no longer need to buy drugs on the black market, and studies at Vancouver's Crosstown Clinic found patients in the program cut back their use of illicit drugs from at least 14 times a month to less than four. [continues 319 words]
This week marks a historic first for the City of Lethbridge. The Supervised Consumption Site (SCS) will open its doors and will be the first of its kind in North America to offer all four modes of consumption - ingestion/oral, injection, intra-nasal/snorting and inhalation. Despite this milestone, it's fair to say the facility has been met with mixed reviews, including people who have come to me to "blame" the police service for letting it happen. This not only demonstrates a narrow view of Canada and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but a failure to understand the role of the police in social-political decisions that are driven by municipal , provincial and federal officials and the mandate they support. [continues 905 words]
Iam increasingly concerned with the inadequacy of our approach to the opioid crisis, both as a society and in the field of public health. There is no question that when people are dying in large numbers, we have to respond, and that has been happening. Safe injection sites, the distribution of naloxone kits and similar efforts are important. But this response is sadly inadequate. It repeats the "upstream" story that I told in the first column I wrote, in December 2014, one that is fundamental to the public health approach. In essence, villagers living on the banks of a river are so busy rescuing drowning people that nobody has time to go upstream to learn how they are ending up in the river and stop them being pushed in. [continues 602 words]
St. Catharines council is unanimously supporting the creation of a temporary supervised injection site in the city to help deal with the opioid crisis. "It is pure harm reduction. It is stopping people from dying," said Sandi Tantardini of Niagara Area Moms Ending Stigma, speaking in support of the site at Monday night's council meeting. Tantardini and Jennifer Johnston founded the group of moms, families and friends of people who have been lost to or are struggling with addiction. "When we're talking about the effects of the opioid crisis, our group and its representatives and our families, we're the faces of it," said Johnston, whose son Jonathan, a chef who trained at Niagara College, died of a fentanyl overdose in Toronto. [continues 328 words]
As a national opioid crisis wages on, Toronto police have decided to equip their downtown frontline officers with the opioid antidote naloxone. "This is about life and death, and that's what we signed up to do," Chief Mark Saunders told the Toronto Police Services Board at their meeting Thursday. Chief Saunders was tasked last year with submitting a report to the board on how the service might go about deploying the antidote, which can be used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. [continues 571 words]
Protesters carrying signs saying "Injustice is fatal!" laid dozens of white carnations next to a coffin on the steps of Montreal City Hall Tuesday, each representing a life lost to a drugoverdose. A coalition of community groups, crisis workers, activists and drug users held a demonstration demanding the government repeal drug laws that marginalize drug users. They also held a moment of silence - joining several vigils held simultaneously across Canada. The opioid crisis claimed nearly 3,000 lives in 2016, and the estimated death toll last year is pegged at 4,000 people. [continues 426 words]
Every morning, Kevin Thompson takes a short stroll from his apartment to the Crosstown Clinic, where he signs in, gets his prescription medicine, then sits in a small room and injects it before heading off to work. He follows this routine up to three times a day and has done so virtually every day for more than a dozen years. The medicine is diacetylmorphine, the medical term for prescription heroin. "It saved my life. No question, it saved my life," Mr. Thompson, 47, says emphatically. [continues 683 words]
With toxic street drugs such as fentanyl killing four British Columbians a day, much of the response has focused on overdose treatments with naloxone, and supervised injection sites. Yet public-health staff have concluded that emergency interventions such as these will not stop the epidemic. If the supply of these drugs cannot be halted - and no war on drugs has ever been won - the only option is to prevent the downward slide that leads to street-drug addiction. Many of the victims are middle-age men and women who have fought a lifelong struggle against such challenges as alcoholism, mental illness, the lasting effects of childhood abuse and more. [continues 513 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]
Rally in response to the opioid crisis hears tales of loss and 'burnt out' workers Kim Pare said his family did everything they could to help their bright and beautiful daughter, but in the end she couldn't fight the illness of addiction. It's been almost four years since Kaitlyn died, at 24, from a prescription opioid overdose and from her father's perspective nothing has really changed. "We are losing a generation of people who could be valuable members of our society. We have to help them,' Pare said, speaking to about 30 people at a rally at King and York Sts. Tuesday's event was part of a National Day of Action in response to the opioid and contaminated drug crisis. [continues 607 words]
Earlier this month, front-line health workers in Toronto raised the possibility that part of the city's cocaine supply may be tainted with fentanyl, after a handful of drug overdoses were connected to users unknowingly consuming the deadly opioid while smoking crack. This dismal scenario is common in Canada. Across the country, illicit drugs are being cut with the synthetic painkiller - which is up to 50 times more potent than heroin - because it is cheap and powerful and saves dealers money. During a month-long period in the summer of 2016, 86 per cent of the street drugs tested at Vancouver's supervised injection sitewere laced with fentanyl. [continues 628 words]
The AIDS Network is putting itself forward to run Hamilton's first supervised injectionsite at its downtown Effort Square location. The AIDS service organization is preparing proposals to the provincial and federal governments for a permanent site where people can inject illegal drugs under the watchful eye of trained staff without fear of arrest. Meanwhile, it is also proposing a smaller temporary overdose prevention site as a stopgap that would allow supervised injection until the permanent location was approved and operating. [continues 417 words]
