Fighting back tears, Olympia Lynn Trypis stood in the rotunda of city hall and begged for better services for drug users, to save her life and the lives of her friends. "In the last two years I've lost three of my really close friends and I am tired of having to go to funerals and not celebrating more birthdays. These people were beautiful souls," said Trypis, 22, speaking to a crowd who had marched to city hall in memory of people lost to drug overdoses, or contaminated drugs. [continues 325 words]
It'll be months before London finds out if it gets the go-ahead and funding for supervised drug injection sites, but it appears key players already are walking in unison to support the sites, but restrict where they can locate. The area's medical officer of health, a key city planner and an advocate for the downtrodden all express some confidence there will be suitable sites sufficiently far from schools and other places frequented by children. "I completely understand why the city and stakeholders would want to limit where it goes," said Chris Mackie, the head of public health in London and Middlesex County. "I definitely think it will be possible to find one or two locations that will work." [continues 602 words]
Just how horrific Ontario's opioid crisis has become came into sharp focus this past week with the release of timely new data from Ontario's chief coroner, Dirk Huyer. Sadly, from May to July of this year, there were 336 opioid-related deaths in the province, up from 201 in that same period last year. That represents a staggering 68-per-cent increase. Health Minister Eric Hoskins put a human face on the startling statistics when he reminded Ontarians that "each and every one of these numbers is a person: someone who was loved by their family, someone who won't be coming home this holiday season." [continues 589 words]
Community Drug Strategy steps up efforts to combat opioid crisis Some 52 people were admitted to hospitals in the Sudbury area in the past six months due to drug overdose, official say. Members of Sudbury's Community Drug Strategy also said Friday they have had preliminary discussions about the need for an overdose prevention site in the city. They made the comments in response to the Ontario government's decision Thursday to expand the provincial opioid response, which they called good news. [continues 756 words]
Currently, some of the city's drug users have set up supervised sites in their own homes Contamination of the street drug supply with substances such as fentanyl has forced some of the city's drug users to set up their own supervised consumption sites in their homes. The agency that works most closely with drug users says the home sites indicate that Kingston needs a formal, government-sanctioned consumption site. "We definitely know there is a need because we are aware of people using their homes right now as safer places to use," said Dr. Meredith MacKenzie, a physician for Kingston Community Health Centres' Street Health Centre who described a home site as a "not perfectly safe, but safer, environment to use in." [continues 444 words]
Cambridge resident Cindy Watson wants the Region of Waterloo to put the brakes on the proposed use of safe injection sites. During the region's community services committee Tuesday, Watson spoke in front of councillors asking them to think hard before moving forward with safe injection sites. "You will be making one of the most important decisions of your career," said Watson. "Don't be pressured into using a broken model the model itself is broken." Watson said harm reduction is needed, but needs to be balanced with public safety and livelihood of downtown cores. [continues 514 words]
While regional councillors have heard bits and pieces about the opioid response in the region, they heard it from the horse's mouth on Tuesday. Members from various regional and community groups spoke before council in a public meeting to encourage a broad understanding of the complex issue. The public meeting was broken down into core areas, such as policing, mental health services and public health services. Bruce Lauckner, CEO of the Waterloo-Wellington Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), said opioids have become similar to cancer, where the general population is impacted by one or two degrees of separation at most. [continues 1113 words]
Two community agencies on hand to lend support for initiative which is expected to be paid for by province The city has endorsed a supervised injection site for downtown Hamilton but it's up to a community agency to step up to run such a facility. The city's board of health endorsed the findings of a long-awaited study Monday that recommend adding at least one permanent site in the core for people to safely inject illegal drugs under the watchful eye of health professionals. [continues 575 words]
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]
