HKLN, HKPR release situational report on the drug poisoning crisis

DAN CEARNS The Standard

KAWARTHA LAKES: The Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland (HKLN) Drug Strategy and the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit (HKPR) have released a situational assessment to help address the local and provincial drug poisoning crisis.

“The drug poisoning crisis has been many years in the making and is a growing public health issue. Contributing factors include historic prescription of opioids for clinical use, illegally produced synthetic opioids, numerous contaminants that make the unregulated supply unpredictable, and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report states. “This report provides a situational assessment of the four pillar approach used to address the drug poisoning crisis in the County of Haliburton, City of Kawartha Lakes and Northumberland County. The four pillars are Prevention and Education, Treatment, Harm Reduction, and Community Safety.”

During the creation of the assessment, a survey was undertaken. Eighty-one percent of respondents said they would use a consumption and treatment site if it were available. Seventy percent said they would use drug-checking services. Seventy-nine percent said they would use a safer supply program. Seventy-one percent said there needs to be more safe and secure places to live. Seventy-one percent also said there needs to be better access to harm-reduction supplies and equipment.

The report has ten recommendations to tackle the crisis as well. These include advocating for the creation of a Provincial Drug Strategy Task Force and employing a coordinator to focus on provincial response to the drug poisoning crisis, ensuring that people with lived and living experience (PWLLE) of substance use are meaningfully included and engaged in all planning and decisions on proposed programs and services, advocating for access to real-time data on drug poisonings, investing in upstream prevention and early intervention services, addressing stigma within organizations, expanding harm reduction service provisions, expanding mobile outreach for harm reduction and medical treatment, establishing direct access pathways to care, withdrawal management and treatment, building capacity in the HKLN network, and pursuing evidence-based and health-centred diversion programs.

Kate Hall, a Health Promoter, told reporters at a recent press conference that this crisis has seen “unprecedented deaths from unregulated drug supply, which is unpredictable, rapidly changing and growing increasingly toxic.”

“It is a complex health issue that is largely fueled by unregulated, synthetically produced opioids,” she added.

Port Hope Police Chief Tim Farquharson told The Standard that police across Ontario used to focus on making arrests as their way of targeting this issue in the early 2000s, but things have changed since then. He noted educating officers on “appropriate referrals,” having diversion programs in place to divert issues away from the court system, as well as anti-stigma training for officers as ways police forces across Ontario are better trying to tackle this issue comprehensively.

For more information on the strategy, go online to https://hklndrugstrategy.ca/.