Pubdate: Mon, 21 Aug 2017
Source: Toronto 24hours (CN ON)
Copyright: 2017 Canoe Inc.
Contact:  http://24hrs.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4068
Author: Antonella Artuso
Page: 4

DEBATE THIS: ARE SAFE INJECTION SITES AN INVITATION TO ADDICTS?

Toronto has sent an open invitation to every drug addict in the
province to congregate in one of the three neighbourhoods slated to
host safe injection sites, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti says.

The experience in Vancouver has been one of drug dealers openly
selling their products and users freebasing in the streets around
injection clinics, he said.

"There were more people on the streets using drugs than in what they
call safe injection sites," Mammoliti said, predicting public outrage
within a year of Toronto's safe injection sites opening this fall.

A temporary site, which will become a permanent site, will open as
early as Monday this week at Toronto Public Health's The Works near
Yonge St. and Dundas Ave.

Health Canada said Sunday in a news release that Toronto's application
for an interim injection site was approved after passing required
inspections.

The remaining two permanent safe injection sites will be located at
the Queen West-Central Toronto Community Health Centre, near Richmond
Street W. and Bathurst St., and the South Riverdale Community Health
Centre on Queen St. E. near Carlaw Ave.

Mammoliti said he believes the only real solution to the current drug
overdose epidemic, even though it might cost more up front, is to make
safe injection services and addiction treatment available in hospitals
and pharmacies across Ontario.

"So it's not just one community taking in all the addicts that the
province has to offer," he said. "Each community would have an
obligation to deal with this like we have done with the methadone
treatments."

Yonge and Dundas, a key tourist gathering spot, will turn into a
"third-world country" with people sleeping in the square and using
drugs in the open, he predicted.

"Police are going to be turning a blind eye; there'll be no
enforcement whatsoever of any crime that's going on," he said.

Mammoliti said he's sympathetic to those struggling with these
problems, but providing them with a place to use drugs without any
addiction treatment is not the way to go.

The provincial government should work to change the culture at
hospitals so that the service can be provided there, and should also
provide the funding for it, he said.
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MAP posted-by: Matt