Toronto Board of Health Approves Supervised Injection Sites for Opioid Users
One advocate died by overdose before the approval vote.
— -- A second Canadian city is moving towards creating safe spaces for users of opioids, often heroin and fentanyl, to inject drugs while having access to healthcare. The Toronto Board of Health approved going forward with a supervised injection site where users of the drugs can inject them in a safe environment, have access to health services and receive an antidote in case they overdose.
During a meeting at the Toronto Board of Health family and friends of drug users who died implored the board members to allow the injection sites, as part of "harm reduction" measures to reduce drug overdoses and diseases spread through needles like HIV.
The memory of one young advocate, who had been addicted to opiates since 16, was invoked to bring home the problem. Brooklyn McNeil, 22, had spoken to the board in March about how helpful having supervised injections sites would be for addicts. She spoke about a recent overdose at a hospital where she was revived with the opioid antidote Naloxone.
"I was saved and I literally watched the dry erase board go from one number to one number up" for lives saved, McNeil said in a the March meeting. "Respect for all members of the community is so important especially not looking at addicts as invaders but as part of the community," she told the board in March.
McNeil died on June 22 according to Canadian broadcast network, CBC. A counselor who worked with McNeil spoke at the meeting on Monday asking the board to approve the injection sites to save lives like McNeil's.
"If there was a safe injection site I think she would still be alive," John MacDonald, a harm reduction worker at Eva's Satellite shelter told the board on Monday. "I don’t know how many more young people we need to lose before we say this needs to happen sooner rather than later."
Should the injections sites be approved by the city council in Toronto, it will become the second Canadian city to allow supervised use of illicit, "pre-obtained" injectable drugs. Vancouver has been running supervised injection sites for years.
Toronto like many American cities has seen skyrocketing use of opioids including heroin abuse. Three sites have been proposed as possible supervised injection sites.
Cities including Syracuse, New York and Seattle, Washington have either considered or had proposals for supervised injection sites, but not have been approved.
"Between 2004 and 2014 there was a 77 percent increase in the reported number of people dying from overdose in Toronto –- from 146 in 2004 to 258 in 2014, the highest annual number to date," according to the Toronto Board of Health agenda.
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