Drug users at risk with closure of Halifax overdose prevention site, advocate says

Atlantic Canada's first overdose prevention site has closed, posing a significant risk to Halifax drug users, an advocate says.

"Obviously, not having that safe place for people to administer drugs is a loss to the community, particularly for the most vulnerable people who live alone or who have precarious housing situations," said San Patten, a member of the executive committee of the HaliFIX Overdose Prevention Society.

"We don't want to see people injecting in playgrounds and alleyways and doorways and public washrooms. We want to see people in places that are safe and dignified."

The HaliFIX Overdose Prevention Site was established last July after Health Canada granted the society a one-year exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. 

It allowed the consumption of otherwise illegal drugs at the site, located in the basement of Direction 180, a Halifax opioid treatment clinic on Gottingen Street. 

Patten said that exemption had been extended into the fall and was expected to be extended again. 

The space provided a safe place for users to consume drugs with access to peer support, health-care professionals and life-saving medications such as Naloxone in case of an overdose.

"People with addictions need to take drugs to cope with their addiction and they can either do that at home — isolated, hiding away — or they can do it in a place that they could get help if something goes wrong," Patten said.

The site received no funding from the provincial or federal governments. Funding for the site came entirely from donations and T-shirt sales.

Patten said the site closed because the society's relationship with the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre had ended. Direction 180, which housed the overdose prevention site for the year, is one of the programs offered by the centre.

Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre did not have someone available for comment on Thursday.

Cindy MacIsaac, the director of Direction 180, said it was in the program's best interest to dissociate with the HaliFIX Overdose Prevention Society.

"While we do have a role in advocacy for the populations that we serve, our primary goal was to deliver those services to the best of our abilities," MacIsaac said.

"There was some conflict regarding, philosophically, what we could advocate for and not and relationships became strained. And so Direction 180, in partnership with the Friendship Centre and Mainline [Needle Exchange], felt that it was best to sever ties with the HaliFIX group."

MacIsaac did say a new overdose prevention site is expected to open out of the Brunswick Street Mission in the coming weeks.

"It is a known hotspot so we anticipate more people will use the service," she said, adding that the site will be more accessible to drug users who need assistance.

Funding was received from the United Way. The new site will be called ReFIX and will be open five hours a day.

MacIsaac said the group is just waiting for final approval from Health Canada.

There were 57 confirmed and probable opioid toxicity deaths in Nova Scotia in 2019. So far in 2020, 19 Nova Scotians have died of either confirmed or probable opioid overdoses.

Patten said users will be at more of a risk of incarceration, contracting infectious diseases, or overdosing without a safe place to consume drugs.

"We hope it won't happen, but overdoses are an ongoing issue … it's a fear that overdoses will continue and will create more opportunity for people to die as a result of their drug addictions," she said.

When the site was approved, some people in the neighbourhood raised concerns about the service.

Patten, who was the program evaluator at the site, said she didn't witness any negative incidents during the year.

"It's disappointing that we've faced such opposition to a life-saving, evidence-informed, proven public health service — essentially something that we're doing for the community," she said. 

"It's a health service that should be funded by Public Health."