Her safe site serves as many as 70 users a day, a number she estimates would at least triple if smoking were permitted. Kerri Kightley is the manager of consumption treatment services for a facility in Peterborough, Ont., a city of 135,000 people that experienced 59 overdose fatalities in 2022 and 38 more over the first six months of this year. (Marnie Luke/CBC)īut other significant bureaucratic hurdles remain, especially for safe sites that receive provincial funding. The spartan facility remains the only indoor space in Ontario approved for the consumption of opioids and other illicit drugs. Now that such questions have been answered, Simons is hopeful that future approvals will be faster.Ī safe-smoking room has been set up inside Casey House, a specialized HIV hospital in Toronto. "And that took some time to understand from the government's perspective whether they were going to allow us to have people use illicit drugs in this space." "The piece that seemed to be the barrier initially was around the Smoke Free Ontario Act because you can't smoke obviously within a public facility, especially a hospital," said Simons. However, even without taxpayer funds on the line, the approval process took 18 months. The construction cost about $10,000 and was covered by hospital donors, as are the room's ongoing operating costs. "What we needed to install was just a really big fan that could blow the smoke out as quickly as possible," she said. It was simple to build, said Joanne Simons, the hospital's CEO. Ontario has one sanctioned smoking site, a small room that exclusively serves clients of Casey House, a specialized HIV hospital in Toronto. But things appear to bog down at the provincial level. Health Canada will exempt inhalation sites from federal drug laws, demanding the same safeguards as for injection or other uses, a process that usually takes just a few weeks with community support. "And I think the consequence is what we're seeing now: six deaths a day in British Columbia, 20 deaths a day in Canada … several times what you might get from motor vehicle accidents and suicides and other forms of death combined." "In my opinion, it's red tape," said McDougall. He says that governments aren't displaying enough urgency when it comes to halting overdose deaths. Peter Centre, helps community groups across the country set up and manage safe sites. The reasons why appear to be mostly bureaucratic. In British Columbia, inhalation overtook injections back in 2017, causing 56 per cent of drug deaths in 2021. Ontario's numbers flipped five years ago, with smoking accounting for 68 per cent of fatalities by late 2022.īut there remain only five approved indoor inhalation sites across the country, versus almost 50 focused on injection. and Ontario keep statistics on the mode of consumption associated with drug deaths, but the trend towards smoking is both clear and longstanding. Studies suggest that adding inhalation spaces would save additional lives. That compares to 2,342 fatal overdoses in homes and on the streets in 2022. In B.C., there have been 3.87 million visits to safe sites since 2017, according to the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, with 25,000 overdoses and just one death. calls animal tranquillizer xylazine, fentanyl mixture 'emerging threat' surpasses 1,000 in first 5 months of the year And like all government-funded harm reduction facilities in Ontario - and most of the rest of the country - it doesn't permit drug smoking, just injection, oral and nasal use. The nearest official safe consumption site is in Peterborough, almost 60 kilometres away. "There's just so many people that are struggling and no one to help."Ĭobourg, home to 20,000 on the shore of Lake Ontario east of Toronto, has had a dozen fatal overdoses over the past 18 months. "It just seemed that there was more and more need, and more and more people dying," said Ashley Smoke, one of the organizers. All for an unsanctioned, pop-up safe site for local drug users, specifically geared to people who inhale rather than inject. Volunteers are setting up camp chairs and folding tables in an alleyway and laying out supplies, including alcohol swabs, plastic pipes and naloxone kits to be used in case of overdoses. The local business authority even coined a hashtag, "#8BlocksofAwesome."īut on Friday nights, just steps off the postcard main street, another side of life comes into view. There are stately buildings, quaint shops and old-fashioned iron lampposts decorated with hanging flower baskets. The historic core of Cobourg, Ont., brims with small-town charm.
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