Ontario’s closing of supervised consumption sites will cause half of Toronto clients to lose access: study

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Ontario’s planned closing of several supervised consumption sites in Toronto is expected to lead to a significant number of existing clients losing access to services, a new study released Thursday says.

The research, conducted at St. Michael’s Hospital’s MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, focused on the number of individuals who may no longer be able to access supervised consumption services, where drugs can be used in the presence of trained staff, when the closings announced take effect in March.

Toronto has 10 supervised consumption sites serving community clients, which is the largest number of any city in Canada. Five are mandated to close and a sixth may close because its lease is set to expire and a new location may not be approved, the report said.

Assuming four supervised consumption sites remain open and the service radius is 500 metres, an estimated 636 people, or 47 per cent of current clients, would lose access. The report said this figure is based on remaining sites being able to accommodate clients in their area, which would require increasing capacity considerably.

Supervised drug consumption sites may have earned political and public wrath, but they are more helpful than harmful

Supervised consumption sites in Toronto are currently accessible to a small minority of people who use opioids and stimulants and closing the sites “would exacerbate this disparity,” the study said.

The issue has become increasingly political. For years, public health experts have advocated for the sites and say they provide a clean place for people to consume drugs with staff who know how to respond if there is an overdose.

The opioid crisis killed more than 2,500 people in Ontario last year. A study published this summer by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario said for nearly a decade, the opioid crisis and increasingly toxic drug supply have devastated communities across Ontario and deaths have occurred in big and small communities.

The government’s closings are part of a ban of supervised consumption sites located in proximity to schools and child-care centres, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced in August. The move amounts to a shift in addictions policy, with a focus on treatment and recovery and away from harm reduction measures.

The government said it plans to spend nearly $400-million to set up a network of homeless and treatment centres.

At the federal level, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to pull funding from the sites, which he refers to as “drug dens,” and direct money to addiction-recovery programs, should his party form government after the next election.

Closing supervised consumption sites in Ontario is a fatal mistake

Thursday’s report said that even with increases in capacity to the sites that remain open, Ontario’s changes likely will force some clients to “lose access to supervised drug consumption services.”

“Because it is likely that many people will not travel far distances, we project that a large proportion of people – almost 50 per cent in some scenarios – will lose access to an intervention with a strong evidence base for improving their health and well-being,” the report said.

To reach their findings, the researchers used health data including information reported by supervised consumption sites to the Ontario Health Ministry and data reported directly by site operators.

The researchers also wrote that their analysis underscores the urgency of reconsidering the planned closures.

Supporters of supervised consumption sites have strongly condemned Ontario’s announcement and say the closing of the sites will amount to the end of life-saving services in the midst of an unprecedented toxic drug crisis, resulting in more deaths.

With reports from Laura Stone in Toronto