Study of possible area drug-use site continues, despite provincial review

The future of a possible supervised drug-use site in Woodstock faces more uncertainty after Ontario paused approval of new sites pending a review of all such facilities.

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Even with the provincial move announced Thursday, however, the area public health unit for Oxford and Elgin counties plans to continue its study to determine if Woodstock would be a suitable location for a site where users can legally consume drugs under medical supervision.

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“At this point, it’s a recent development,” Ninh Tran, the top public health official for the two-county area, said Friday.

“We haven’t had a chance to discuss what the province has indicated,” he said of Southwestern Public Health, the area public health agency, “but at this time we’re still proceeding” with the study.

Supervised drug-use sites have become common in larger cities, including Londonamid the opioid drug crisis, as health authorities and others move to try to stem the number of overdose deaths, but the supervised centers are not as widespread in small-city Ontario.

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While Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government isn’t considering closing any of the 17 supervised consumption and treatment sites in the province, its associate minister of mental health and addictions said the review is open-ended, including about the location of the sites.

“Public safety is a priority for us, and we have to make sure that whatever we do is calculated to be done in such a way to make sure that no one is going to be harmed as a result of the Site (s being open and being operational,” MPP Michael Tibollo said.

Ontario launched a “critical incident review” in the summer after a mother of two was killed by a stray bullet near a consumption site in Toronto following an altercation between three men.

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Five years ago, during the 2018 election campaign that made him first, Doug Ford came out swinging against supervised drug consumption sites, calling them “drug-injection” sites and vowing to abolish them if he became premier. The focus, he said at the time, should be on rehabilitation.

“If your son, daughter, loved one ever had an addiction, would you want them to go in a little area and do more drugs? I am dead against that,” Ford, whose late brother Rob, a former Toronto mayor, made headlines for crack cocaine use, said on the campaign trail.

The PCs softened that stance in office, with other sites approved since the Ford government took power.

But even as a harm-reduction tool, the sites remain controversial in some areas.

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A proposed site for Woodstock has sparked fierce debate in recent weeks, with health professionals and ordinary citizens addressing city council on the issue at a special meeting late last month. The meeting drew an audience so largeit spilled into the hallway outside and an adjoining room.

On motion by Coun. Mark Schadenberg to nix the study, not allowing a site in Woodstock, goes to council later this month.

But Coun. Bernia Wheaton said she opposed focusing the study before its conclusions were reached.

“There (are) a lot of unanswered questions and I would like to have the answers before we make any determination of whether the city of Woodstock supports a consumption and treatment services site within the city limits,” she said.

Wheaton said the study might determine that instead of a consumption and treatment site, more resources should be directed to other ways to deal with addiction, or a combination of those and a site.

“I think we still need to stay our course” and continue the study, she said.

The study is still in its early stages, and a potential location, operator and funding, among other considerations, haven’t been determined.

– With file by Canadian Press

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