Before deciding that safe drug consumption sites are a blot on the community and should be closed — Premier Ford has made that his conclusion with legislation to come — remember how complicated this issue is, and read three things.
First is an article in the medical journal Lancet Public Health by a team of doctors and researchers in Toronto headed by Dr. Dan Werb at St. Michael’s Hospital. The article “compared crude overdose mortality rates before and after the implementation of nine safe consumption sites in Toronto.”
Data was obtained from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario. The findings showed that “the overdose mortality rate decreased significantly in neighbourhoods that implemented safe consumption sites but not in other neighbourhoods.”
Opioid-related deaths in Toronto in 2017 were 57; in 2019 there were 31. These were sons, daughters, brothers and spouses who were loved and are now gone. Neighbourhoods within 500 metres of a safe consumption site showed 24 deaths in 2017 and 6 in 2019, whereas neighbourhoods beyond 500 metres of a site showed 34 deaths in 2017 and 25 in 2019.
In short, safe consumption sites significantly reduce overdose deaths. Sites do not offer clean drugs, but they can get drugs brought into the site tested to reduce the harmful drugs purchased on the street. And sites do offer clean needles. As well, safe consumption sites offer overdose reversal to save lives, and they can offer help for addicts.
In 2023 in Toronto, 523 people died from overdoses. More than 2,500 died in Ontario last year. Without safe consumption sites that number will surely increase.
A second read comes from Jon Woodward of CTV News.
“One of the Doug Ford government’s rationales for a sweeping policy that would shutter supervised drug consumption sites was that they are linked to crime — but a review of publicly posted Toronto police data shows they may have the opposite effect.
“Crime types, including robberies, bike thefts, break and enters, thefts from motor vehicles, shootings and homicides, dropped among neighbourhoods with supervised drug consumption sites between 2018 and 2023, often more than they did in the rest of the city, the data shows.”
In short, safe drug consumption sites reduce crime in their vicinity. But let’s be clear: there are security issues that need to be addressed.
The third read is a report commissioned by Premier Ford himself following the shooting death of a woman in the vicinity of the South Riverdale Community Health Centre that operates a safe consumption site.
The report has two key recommendations. One, “expand harm reduction services including Consumption and Treatment Service sites, Safer Opioid Supply Program and inhalation options to prevent further accidental substance-use death and provide additional safer treatment options for substance users across the spectrum of substance illness.”
Second, “provide funding for security personnel at sites situated close to schools and daycares and enhance funding for competitive recruitment of regulated health professionals at Community Health Centres.”
There won’t be buy in from residents unless security concerns, affordable housing and mental health issues are addressed.
Ford has changed his decisions in the past, such as on Greenbelt lands. As well, he knows about addiction issues from his brother Rob. For the safety of people in Toronto, this decision needs a serious rethink.
John Sewell is a former mayor of Toronto.
