We are a group of therapists, social workers and educators calling on the province to expand rather than restrict access to Supervised Consumption Sites (SCS) for drug users.
In August, the Ontario Conservatives forced the closure of the majority of sites across the province, leaving none in northern Ontario and making it functionally impossible to open new SCSs in densely populated urban areas.
We are in the midst of a devastating public health crisis. The unregulated drug supply is increasingly toxic, and criminalizing policies force people to use tainted drugs in isolation.
In 2023, 2,645 people are reported to have died from the toxic drug supply, a 5% increase from 2022. These deaths are preventable; between 2017 and June 2023, SCSs across Canada attended to approximately 49,000 overdoses and drug-related medical emergencies without one single fatality.
These sites save lives. It’s that simple.
Not only do they decrease drug toxicity deaths, they also reduce the spread of bloodborne infections such as HIV and hepatitis C and lessen public drug use and discarded equipment. And they connect people to additional resources, including the abstinence-based treatments that the Ford government appears to be invested in, should they so choose.
In fact, the Chief Medical Officer of Ontario 2023 annual report, released in March, recommended that access to SCSs, including those for inhaling and smoking drugs, be increased, not restricted. If the province is truly concerned about the health and wellbeing of people who use drugs, they need look no further than their own chief medical officer’s report.
In our work as educators, we prepare future social service providers to support communities and intervene on complex social issues. We endeavor to teach students to identify how racism, colonialism, gender-based discrimination, homophobia, transphobia and other social forces create a society where many people cannot access the resources they need to survive. Supporting drug users is an urgent issue.
The toxic drug supply disproportionately impacts the most structurally oppressed communities. Across Canada, queer and trans people face significant barriers to harm reduction resources. The rates of overdose and opioid-related deaths are seven times higher for First Nations people. In Toronto, Black, Asian and Latin American people are experiencing a rise in opioid toxicity deaths.
Most of these deaths occur in the lowest income neighborhoods due, at least in part, to what one researcher identifies as “an overall lower availability of diagnosis, treatment and harm reduction services in these areas.”
Many who oppose SCS name concerns about public safety. There is good reason to be concerned – but not because of these sites. Much of what people fear – crowded sidewalks, visible drug use in the hours after SCS close – is the result of increasing poverty and the housing crisis, not harm reduction services. People have nowhere to go.
According to the City of Toronto, the average wait time for a one-bedroom unit in rent-geared-to-income housing is 14 years. Further, whether or not they use drugs, individuals experiencing mental health crises – particularly Black, Indigenous and other racialized people – regularly face violence, even death, at the hands of police during so-called “wellness checks.” People with unmet healthcare needs are often locked out of a medical system stretched to its limits by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and years of disinvestment. Increasing access to SCSes is part of a broader fight to ensure social support and good quality of life for all.
More than half of the SCSs in the province face closure. These sites are an essential part of our communities. They serve our neighbors, our loved ones, our friends – they serve us. We are calling on the province to ensure the continued operation of all SCSs, and to expand access to all harm reduction services across Ontario.
Signed:
Charlene Dunstan, Professor and Coordinator
griffin epstein, PhD
Jeffrey Reffo, MSW RSW
Marty Lampkin, RSW MSW
Maureen Boettcher, MSW
Natalie Wood, BA, MA, PhD student
Patty Hayes, MSW, RSW, MDiv, CCC
Rick Owens, MSW, RSW, MEd.
William Woolrich, PhD, RSW