Ontario stonewalls health and human rights groups seeking support for evidence-based supervised consumption services
Ontario, Canada | Aug 7, 2024
A coalition of more than fifty organizations continue to await a response from the provincial government about Ontario’s alarming unregulated drug poisoning fatalities and the forced closure of three supervised consumption sites. In their most recent letter, released today, the coalition is once again calling on the Government of Ontario to immediately support communities desperate for these life-saving services; written communications to Ontario have thus far been met with silence despite the fact that one person in Ontario dies every 2.5 hours due to toxic unregulated drugs.
More than 21,000 people in Ontario have died from unregulated drug poisoning since the current government was elected in 2018, many of whom did not have a diagnosis for substance use disorder. Applications to the province for funding for community-based supervised consumption services have languished for years in an opaque process that has left site operators and local municipalities frustrated and dangerously under-resourced. The province has frozen all new funding for supervised consumption services across Ontario since 2023, placing the blame on a critical incident that occurred near a Toronto site more than one year ago.
Today, the coalition again requested emergency funding to re-open sites in Sudbury and Timmins, two areas hard-hit by the drug poisoning crisis. Until March and June of this year, these sites offered witnessed consumption of pre-obtained drugs so that trained staff could respond to overdose emergencies and connect people to health and social supports, including treatment. These closures highlight a significant inequity in care in the North, with a gap in supervised consumption service access spanning over 1,400 kilometers between Thunder Bay and Toronto. The group is also calling for funds to re-open the site in Windsor, which was forced to shut down services in December.
“The provincial government has stonewalled us,” says Amber Fritz, Manager of Outreach and Education at Réseau Access Network in Sudbury. “We heard months ago from the Opposition that funds were available in the provincial budget to run our supervised consumption site, so this silence is a deliberate, deadly choice. Bureaucracy and stigma have no place in a public health crisis.”
“It’s evident that our community is in dire need of additional resources to support people who use substances. During the almost two years of having the Safe Health Site Timmins, our community saw a reduction in EMS calls for opioid-related injuries and a significant reduction in opioid-related mortality rates,” says Dr. Julie Samson, physician at Timmins and District Hospital. “We are trained to save lives. If we want to keep people alive during the ongoing and worsening drug poisoning crisis, supervised consumption sites are an essential part of the equation.”
The Drug Strategy Network of Ontario and numerous other organizations have been calling for on-demand evidence-based addiction treatment for many years, alongside other harm reduction solutions that benefit both people managing addiction and those who consume unregulated drugs episodically.
Supervised consumption sites offer a space where people who use drugs are treated with acceptance, empathy and respect, which is even more important in an increasingly hostile public and political environment that targets people who use drugs and those who care for them.
“It is heartbreaking that the Ministry of Health is dragging its feet when so many lives are at stake,” says Christine Nayler, advocate of Ryan’s Hope and Moms Stop the Harm in Barrie, where a supervised consumption site application was withdrawn due to a lack of response and clear timelines from the Government of Ontario. “Harm reduction is healthcare. It is about respect, dignity, and saving lives. Our beloved son Ryan may still be alive today if he had been able to access a supervised consumption site. How can our political leaders ignore our suffering?”
The coalition’s joint letter urges officials to introduce transparency and expedited timelines in the application process, and immediately scale up and re-open supervised consumption services across the province.
“This crisis requires a full range of supports to save lives, including harm reduction, withdrawal management and evidence-based, voluntary treatment,” says Nicholas Boyce, policy director with the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. “We have seen emergency services become overwhelmed due to overdoses and poisonings from the unregulated drug supply. We have seen communities declare states of emergency. We desperately need to get in front of this, and supervised consumption services are a key part of a humane and fiscally responsible response.”
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Documents and links available:
- [Recording] March 5 2024 Online Briefing on Open Letter RE: Ontario Supervised Consumption Services with speakers from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, Pozitive Pathways in Windsor, Reseau ACCESS in Sudbury, Safe Health Site in Timmins and the Drug Strategy Network of Ontario.
- Safe Health Site Timmins – Summary Reports
- Reseau Access the Spot – Key Messaging (includes visit data)
Media Contacts:
Ryan Do
Social Media Specialist, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition
About the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition:
Founded in 2010, the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition works in partnership with more than 60 organizations and 7,000 individuals working to support the development of a drug policy for Canada that is based in science, guided by public health principles, respectful of the human rights of all, and seeks to include people who use drugs and those harmed by the war on drugs in moving towards a healthier society. Learn more at www.drugpolicy.ca
About Moms Stop the Harm
Moms Stop the Harm challenges laws and policies that cause harm, including those laws that continue to drive the unregulated drug poisoning emergency in Canada. We call for an end to the failed war on drugs through evidence-based prevention, treatment and policy change. Learn more at www.momsstoptheharm.com
