Health officials make case for drug use site in Woodstock, but opposition persists

Public health officials told Woodstock city council on Tuesday the city needs a supervised drug use facility as the area's rates of opioid overdose deaths, emergency room visits and hospitalizations are now above the Ontario average. 

"Our toxic drug supply has gotten worse over the last couple of years," said Dr. Ninh Tran, the medical officer of health for Southwestern Public Health. "We more than doubled our rates of deaths from 2019 to 2021."

Tran said most of the opioid deaths in the region are happening in private dwellings. 

A consumption and treatment service site (CTS) in Woodstock is a needed "pillar" supporting a suite of other services to address fatal overdoses and the other problems that come with addiction, he said. 

Tran explained that clients who come to CTS are not supplied drugs, but bring their own. The facility provides a place where the drug use is supervised by staff with training in harm reduction. Tran said this will reduce overdose deaths that are rising across the country due to an increasingly toxic supply of street drugs, particularly fentanyl.

Other services, including addiction treatment, are provided at the site to help guide clients into recovery when they're ready. 

"Rather than using the drugs at home by themselves or in public spaces, it's an opportunity to move some of that use into a place that has other people around who can respond to overdoses," said Tran. "We want to keep people alive as long as possible, to a time when they can be ready for treatment. You can't reverse a death." 

Others who spoke in favour of bringing a site to Woodstock included delegations from Oxford Community Health Centre and CMHA Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services. 

'Bridge to services'

Megan Van Boheemen told Woodstock councillors about the success of London's supervised drug use site, which became the province's first government funded supervised drug use site when it opened in 2019.

She said London's site has had more than 52,000 visits and has treated almost 600 overdoes over that time, and that the London facility has made thousands of referrals to various mental health and addiction services. 

"We are very often tasked as the bridge to services to those who struggle to access them," she said. 

And while public health officials made their case in favour of a CTS for Woodstock, more than a dozen residents spoke against it. 

Jasmine Moulton and her husband operate Home Hardware stores in Woodstock and Ingersoll. She questioned the findings of a feasibly study released in the spring which concluded that a supervised drug use site is needed for the area. 

"It's like these unelected bureaucrats are so ideologically driven that the community's feedback has fallen completely on deaf ears, yet they force ahead with their agenda," she said. "Let's help addicts recover instead of destroying their lives and our city with woke, disastrous policies." 

Coun. Bernia Wheaton said she understands the opposition but said a drug use site is needed to bolster other services needed to help lift people out of addiction.

"I see CTS as the first boulder in the stepping stone of crossing the river," she said. "And if we don't put CTS first with all of those other services to follow it's still too big a leap to get to the next rock for some people." 

Councillors voted unanimously to receive all the feedback as information. They plan to carry out more consultation before deciding whether to go ahead with a CTS.