With some reluctance, members of the community services committee agreed Monday to proceed with a study that will look at setting up a safe injection site (SIS) for drug addicts.
The study will cost roughly $200,000 and will be done through the Ministry of Health and the North East LHIN. If it becomes a reality, the capital and operational costs would be covered by the health ministry.
The safe injection site is part of an overall provincial harm reduction strategy aimed at addressing issues addicts and other vulnerable people face.
Other elements include the Out of the Cold shelter the city operates, and the so-called wet shelter, where hardcore alcoholics are given managed access to alcohol as part of an overall treatment program.
The first safe injection site opened in 2003 in Vancouver, says a staff report on the proposal. The community benefits include:
- Reduced overdose-related deaths;
- A decrease in public injecting and discarded needles, with no increase to related crimes;
- Increased referrals to health and social services, including detoxification and drug treatment programs; and,
- Associated with less risky injecting practices and a reduction in transmission rates of HIV and Hepatitis C.
While promoted by health-care and social services experts, Ward 5 Coun. Bob Kirwan said the public has some major concerns about the concept of the city operating a site where people can come and consume illegal drugs.
“Is this a place where someone off the street comes in with their own drugs?” Kirwan asked. “Are there age limits? Can a 14-year-old walk in?”
Tyler Campbell, the city's director of social services, said safe injection sites in other cities generally don't allow minors. Most commonly they are a place where people can come in with the drugs already in their possession and inject them under supervision. They stay there for a while to be sure they're OK, then leave.
The initiative is largely driven by the opioid crisis sweeping North America, a crisis that is a huge part of the 1.2 million used needles collected in Sudbury in 207.
With that scale of a problem, Ward 8 Coun. Al Sizer said he hoped they can get the funding and conduct the study. But he said councillors will “have a lot of questions” once the study is completed.
Ward 7 Coun. Mike Jakubo said the idea of a safe injection site is controversial, but the alternative is to pretend there isn't a crisis.
“Whether we get an SIS or not, this is happening throughout our community, whether we want to admit it or not,” Jakubo said. “If we can make this happen in our city, we will see benefits not only here, in terms of a cleaner community, we will be helping the provincial strategy.”
Jakubo said it makes sense to consider something that would make the community safer and help protect addicts from themselves.
“Some people will just say we're creating a place for people to go and do this,” he said. “Well, they're doing it anyway.”
Ward 6 Coun. Rene Lapierre said he wanted to make it clear they weren't approving an injection site, just the study to determine whether it's something that would help.
“We're not even sure we're at that point yet” where it's something the city needs, he said. “This is just to decide whether we have a big boy city and whether we need this service.”
But Kirwan said he couldn't even support the feasibility study, because it will cause stress in the community and residents will worry it will be located near them.
Plus he said they would be helping people break the law.
“Giving out syringes is one thing,” he said. “We're not enabling them.”
But Lapierre said there were similar concerns about the wet shelter, but they were overcome. “And we've seen some successes,” he said. “So (the safe injection site) is worth at least looking into.”
