Drug Legalization

A week after the Doug Ford government announced the closure of 10 supervised injection sites in Ontario within 200 metres of schools, harm reduction activists had moved on from denial and were well into the second Kubler-Ross stage of accepting the dire news — anger.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents many of the staff members at the five Toronto injection sites set to close by the end of March 2025, organized a press conference Monday to express their collective rage.

In the five years after Ontario began opening so-called “safe” injection sites, deaths from opioid overdoses more than doubled. Crime in the areas around these sites is up considerably, be it violent crimes like assault and murder or simple theft.

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.

The Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site, run by Neighbourhood Group Community Services in Toronto, is one of 10 sites across the province that will be forced to close before next April because they’re located close to either a school or a daycare centre.

“I was surprised about the entire announcement,” Sinclair, CEO of Neighbourhood Group Community Services, told Global News. “They didn’t talk to us in advance. They didn’t contact us before or since or after.”

Why does a publicly funded drug haven need a CEO?

I guess the Rent Seeking business must be good.

Premier Doug Ford is defending his government’s decision to close nearly half of Ontario’s 23 supervised drug consumption facilities, calling them “the worst thing that could ever happen to a community.”

The province earlier this week announced its plan to ban supervised drug consumption sites from operating within 200 metres of schools and child-care centres. The ban means 10 of the 23 sites will close by March 31, 2025.

The fallout from the announced closure of ten supervised injection sites in Ontario within 200 metres of schools and daycares on Tuesday was as swift as it was predictable.

Ontario premier Doug Ford said the next day he was receiving an “endless” stream of calls from residents and business owners near one of those ten sites slated to close, in the Leslieville neighbourhood of Toronto, where my family lives, to offer profuse gratitude. Meanwhile, harm reduction activists launched into what they do best — calling people who disagree murderers.

Ontario is banning supervised consumption sites near schools and childcare centres and adding recovery hubs as part of the government’s new approach to treating addiction, after a shooting outside a Toronto facility last summer prompted the province to launch a review and impose a moratorium on new locations.

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed in the B.C. Supreme Court on behalf of two teenage girls who developed opioid addictions due to, the lawsuit claims, diverted “safer supply” drugs. This litigation is long overdue and sorely needed.

In a quiet corner of a bustling Toronto methadone clinic, Dr. Robert Cooper shared a sobering reflection on the state of Canada’s opioid crisis, which he believes is being fuelled by reckless “safer supply” programs.

A Brantford man who robbed two pharmacies with a handgun faced the wrath of an Ontario Court judge when he appeared in court recently.

When Kevin Couture, 43, apologized for traumatizing pharmacy workers during the October 2022 robberies, Justice Gethin Edward vented his frustration with the “woe is me” tale.

Last autumn, B.C.’s top doctor, Bonnie Henry, commissioned a confidential report from American drug policy expert Jonathan Caulkins examining the “economics” of safer supply diversion. The document, which was completed in March, was apparently so secret that even Premier David Eby was unaware of it — when news of its existence leaked in April, he told reporters that he was blindsided.

Isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid, is circulating in Montreal and its effects are devastating.

Most recently, a 15-year-old boy died on Dec. 21 after ingesting the drug, which is considered more potent than fentanyl.

Mathis Boivin apparently thought he was taking oxycontin.

Cheezus. This never ends.

The National Post has received data from two more Ontario police departments confirming that seizures of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin, have skyrocketed by 1,000 per cent or more since “safer supply” programs became widely available in 2020.