ANALYSIS: Ontario’s Shuttering of Drug Sites Near Schools Part of a National Trend

Methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine from a safe supply being handed out to drug users to mark International Overdose Awareness Day are displayed in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, on Aug. 31, 2021. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

The Ontario government’s recent ban on supervised drug consumption sites near schools and child care centres is the latest part of a countrywide step back from the national harm reduction approach to drug addiction.

The ideology of harm reduction, which advocates for a so-called safer supply of opioids and the decriminalization of hard drugs, held a dominant position in Canadian addiction policy as recently as last year.

It has since fallen out of favour as politicians, addressing a growing discontent among the public, have shifted their focus to treatment and rehabilitation.

Those critical of the harm reduction policy have pointed to increases in crime, drug overdose deaths, and illegal drug distribution since implementation of supervised drug sites and safer supply drug programs.

Proponents of the method say returning to traditional drug treatments will increase the number of overdoses from street drugs, and they continue to push for what they describe as a non-judgmental approach to dealing with drug addictions.

Harm Reduction

The philosophy behind a harm reduction approach to drug use is part pragmatism and part practicality, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).

The aim of harm reduction, rather than focusing on treating addiction, is to reduce the risk of people taking illegal drugs.

The CMHA calls harm reduction “an evidence-based, client-centred approach” that includes supervised consumption services, the distribution of supplies, drug checking, and safer supply programs.

Safer supply programs provide those at high risk of overdose with prescribed drugs as an alternative to purchasing illegal substances off the street.

A man with a sign on his hoodie takes part in a pro-safer supply demonstration in Vancouver on Nov. 3, 2023. The Canadian Press/Ethan Cairns

Those focusing on more traditional approaches to drug use and addiction say there is no such thing as safe drugs, not even those coming from safer supply programs.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been vocal about safe supply drugs and the effect of such programs on the communities where they are offered.

“There’s no such thing as a safe supply of fentanyl, or heroin in any of its derivative forms, or crystal meth,” Ms. Smith said in a May interview.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also rejected the term “safe supply,” saying instead that there should be more support for drug addiction prevention and substance abuse programs.

Safer Supply

The safer supply program is a federally funded initiative that supplies prescribed opioids to those battling addiction in order to discourage them from buying drugs through illegal channels.

London, Ont., was the first place in Canada to pilot a safer supply drug program. Run out of the London InterCommunity Health Centre, the Safer Opioid Supply Program has brought results, according to a report from the hospital that details stats from 2022 and 2023.

“Clients overwhelmingly indicated that since beginning prescribed safer supply, their use of fentanyl and stimulants had decreased or stopped,” the report said.

London Police, however, announced this summer that people who are prescribed safer supply of opioids through the program are selling them, or “diverting them,” to buy higher-potency drugs like fentanyl.

Police Chief Thai Truong said the diversion of safer supply in London is no different from cocaine trafficking because it is happening at both the street level and at higher levels of organized crime. He said London’s low cost of hydromorphone–the main safer supply drug–makes diversion a lucrative pastime for criminals.

The RCMP has also raised the alarm on safer supply diversion in British Columbia, in March, after seizing over 10,000 prescription pills—many of them government-funded “safer supply” pills—in a series of drug busts.

The federal police force told The Epoch Times earlier this year that investigators have witnessed people coming out of pharmacies with safer supply drugs being immediately approached by alleged drug dealers.

“They’re being bulk collected,” Cpl. Jennifer Cooper said. “It’s large amounts. So it’s going somewhere.”

Some of that supply ends up in the hands of teenagers, experts and families say. A proposed class action lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court earlier this month by the families of two teenage girls says the girls consumed safe supply drugs “believing they were safe.” One girl died of an overdose in August 2022 at the age of 14, while the other, now 17, is in treatment for drug addiction.

The lawsuit accuses both the province and the federal government of being lax in the administration of safe supply programming.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been critical of the federally funded program, saying the government should be focused on rehabilitation rather than enabling continued drug use.

“As far as I’m concerned the federal government is the biggest drug dealer in the entire country,” Ford said at a recent press conference. “It’s a failed policy, simple as that.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivers remarks at Lakeshore Collegiate Institute in Toronto on Aug. 31, 2023. The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby

Supervised Consumption Sites

Ford has been equally adamant in his stance against safe supply drugs being doled out at supervised consumption sites in Ontario. His government on Aug. 20 announced it would close 10 sites across Ontario offering supervised drug consumption services, nine of which are provincially funded, by March 31, 2025 under a new policy prohibiting such sites within 200 metres of a school or child care centres.

The move came after months of public outcry about an increase in crime and random violence in these areas, with some citing as evidence the shooting death of a Toronto mom near the Leslieville consumption site at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre on Queen Street East near Carlaw Avenue.

Provincial statistics indicate that reports of assault, robbery, and other violent crimes have climbed sharply in neighbourhoods near consumption sites, with levels rising by as much as 250 percent near an Ottawa site.

Ford was critical of the sites despite two provincially funded reports recommending that existing drug consumption sites remain open. The reports said such sites are an effective way to prevent overdose deaths.

“Giving someone, an addict, a place to do their injections—we haven’t seen it get better,” the premier said at a press conference on Aug. 21. “This was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s the worst thing that could ever happen to a community to have one of these safe injection sites in their neighbourhood.”

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario said in an Aug. 20 press release that the provincial decision is a “death sentence” for those struggling with substance use, adding that it will also cause “overwhelmed emergency services and spiking health-care costs.”

The recommendation received by Ford’s government to keep such sites open is not unique to Ontario. A University of Victoria report from 2020 also describes supervised consumption sites as “necessary public health services.”

“A wealth of evidence suggests that supervised consumption sites do reduce overdoses and other substance use harms, connect people with other health services, and reduce unsafe drug use practices,” the report said.

Decriminalization

B.C. has been ground zero for drug addiction issues for nearly a decade. The issue has been rampant since at least 2016 when the province first declared a public-health emergency in response to a significant increase in drug-related overdoses and deaths.

B.C. Premier David Eby speaks during an announcement in Delta, B.C., on May 2, 2023. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

B.C. was the first province to take this kind of action in response to the crisis from drug overdoses, says an April 2016 provincial government news release.

It was also the first province to decriminalize drug use as part of a three-year pilot project with Health Canada in January 2023. Following a request by the province, the federal government issued an exemption to drug laws for B.C., decriminalizing possession of up to 2.5 grams of certain illegal drugs, including heroin, morphine, fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine.

The province was not yet halfway into its three-year pilot project when it asked Ottawa to recriminalize open drug use in public places. The move came after a public outcry that the project was making the drug problem worse while also exposing children to drug use at beaches and playgrounds. Public complaints ranged from drug paraphernalia littering parks to users shooting up on the street, to nurses and patients being exposed to hard drugs by hospitalized addicts.

In an April 26 news release, Premier David Eby said that while having compassion for those struggling with addiction is important, the province could no longer “accept street disorder that makes communities feel unsafe.”

The federal government approved the recriminalization request on May 7.

A similar push was made by the City of Toronto when it filed an application with Health Canada in early 2022 to decriminalize the possession of illegal drugs for personal use.

The Ontario provincial government, however, has been adamant in its stance against such a move. Premier Ford said in April that he would fight the proposal “tooth and nail,” and his health minister Sylvia Jones and Solicitor General Michael Kerzner penned a letter to the city’s medical officer of health warning against pursuing the matter any further.

The premier said the failure of B.C.’s pilot project provides proof that decriminalization is not effective.

Toronto’s medical officer of health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, has described decriminalization as a tool that’s “supported by the best available evidence.” She said such a move would help address the city’s “drug toxicity epidemic” and prevent overdose deaths.

The federal government has since refused the city’s decriminalization request.

Overdoses

B.C. is not alone in declaring a public-health emergency in the face of escalating overdose deaths.

Several Ontario municipalities, including Belleville, Hamilton, Kingston, and Niagara, have declared states of emergency due to the overdose crisis and related challenges such as mental health and homelessness.

Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks in Ottawa on April 9, 2024. The Canadian Press/ Patrick Doyle

The move by the City of Belleville came after emergency services responded to 17 drug overdoses in a 24-hour period. Hastings County Paramedic Chief Carl Bowker previously told The Epoch Times that Belleville and the surrounding area had been struggling with drugs suspected of being laced with substances such as the date rape drug GHB, animal tranquilizers, and ketamine.

Fatal drug overdoses reached a national average of 22 per day last year, according to a federal report released on June 28.

The number of apparent opioid overdose deaths reported in Canada in 2023, 8,049, is 7 percent higher than in 2022, while opioid-related poisoning hospitalizations and ER visits are 16 percent and 17 percent higher respectively, the report said. Overdose-related emergency medical service calls have also risen and are 18 percent higher.

A total of 44,592 deaths have been linked to opioids between January 2016—when national surveillance began—and December 2023, said the report.

In the June news release, Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks said the rise in overdoses is driven by an illegal synthetic drug supply that is “unpredictable and increasingly toxic,” with potent drugs like fentanyl and other synthetic opioids flooding the illegal supply.

According to the federal report, 82 percent of 2023’s opioid overdose deaths involved fentanyl, a percentage that has increased by 44 percent since 2016.

In 2023, 87 percent of all accidental suspected opioid toxicity deaths in Canada occurred in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.

Aside from safe supply and consumption sites, Saks said Ottawa plans to tackle the problem by investing in substance use prevention, harm reduction, and treatment.