On August 20, 2024, the Government of Ontario announced plans to ban supervised consumption sites (SCS) within 200 metres of schools and child care centres. If implemented, these zoning requirements could result in the closure of nearly half (10) of the province’s SCS/consumption and treatment services (CTS), in addition to several urgent public health need sites (UPHNS).
Toronto’s Drug Checking Service has developed this memo to share how such closures could impact drug checking service delivery in Ontario and unregulated drug market monitoring in Canada.
- Closing SCS/CTS/UPHNS would impact access to drug checking services: Six of our 10 collection site members in Toronto face closure by the Ontario government’s proposed zoning requirements.
- Closing SCS/CTS/UPHNS would impact access to a continuum of care: During our pilot period, 42% of service users surveyed by our program had not previously accessed harm reduction services, meaning drug checking services act as a gateway to harm reduction services and, in turn, a gateway to referrals to drug-related, health, and social services, including treatment. 21% of service users surveyed reported intending to use at a supervised consumption site after receiving their drug checking results.
- Closing SCS/CTS/UPHNS would impact our ability to monitor and share real-time information on the composition of the unregulated drug supply: Our program has become a primary source of timely and public unregulated drug market monitoring for Canada. 78% of the samples contributing to our unregulated drug market monitoring efforts were collected at the six SCS/CTS/UPHNS in Toronto that are at risk of closure.
Read the full memo.