No takers for Hamilton police heroin amnesty

Hamilton has avoided more overdose deaths caused by a batch of extremely lethal heroin circulating in the city, Public Health says, but interest in both the city’s new overdose prevention kits and police’s heroin amnesty has been almost non-existent.

Police offered an amnesty on criminal charges earlier this month to anyone who turned over drugs for chemical analysis – they even said they’d pick up the drugs from users at their door. Public health also pushed new overdose prevention kits containing the drug naloxone, which helps keep someone who is overdosing alive.

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But neither campaign has been a success. Even so, the deaths have stalled, says Julie Emili, an associate medical officer of health with the city. “I haven’t seen any notifications of further deaths,” Emili said.

But officials are no closer to figuring out just what was killing people. To date, not one person has stepped forward to police with drugs for analysis, police say. Const. Claus Wagner told CBC Hamilton that vice and drug detectives are still investigating and “continuing to monitor” the situation. Police denied interview requests with detectives for this story. Toxicology reports from the coroner taken from three people suspected of overdose aren't due back for roughly two weeks.

Overdose kits not flying off the shelves

Public Health also hasn’t seen a rise in people accessing overdose prevention kits. Here are the number of kits that have been distributed each month since the program began:

• 15 in May
• 14 in June
• 23 in July
• 15 in August

Emili says she isn’t shocked that it’s taking more time for users to adopt the kits as part of a harm reduction strategy. She says Public Health’s media blitz from a couple of weeks ago helped make people more aware of the issue and to change their drug use habits, “but the behaviour change to get them in for a kit takes longer.”

“The reality is – as with all harm reduction materials – you have to engage the public where they’re at,” she said. “And the less you ask of people to do additionally, the better.”

That means people are more likely to pick up the kits when in for an existing service – like an STI test or for a needle exchange. “It’s life. People have other priorities and we have to link up with those,” Emili said.

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But Debbie Bang, the manager of St. Joseph’s Healthcare Womankind addictions service, says the problem runs even deeper than that. A person who is addicted to opioids spends so much time ensuring their next high is in place that the rest of their life often falls by the wayside.

“Part of the difficulty here is this is a full time job for people who are using opioids,” she said. "And they don't necessarily value themselves enough to take that time to do what's good for them."

Bang also isn’t surprised that this recent media blitz hasn’t done much to get overdose prevention kits out there. “It doesn’t exactly leave them with a whole lot of time to be watching the news or listening to radio.”

Trust a factor, Bang says

The same goes for no one taking the police up on their offer to bring in heroin for testing, even if it is no questions asked. “It has to do with that trust piece,” Bang said. “There are all kinds of examples of people wondering if that policeman is safe and non judgmental.”

But simply leaving the kits where people could pick them up also isn’t an option, Bang says, because a health care worker needs to explain how to use them properly. "And yes, you could make the argument that 'well no one taught them how to use heroin,' but in reality, someone did."

Emili says Public Health will continue to do what it can to get these kits out to the people who need them. “We would hope that people’s behaviour has changed,” she said.

Bang agrees that persistence is key. “We just have to be patient and keep at it.”