Murray Wood: The 'write' thing to do
You've likely heard about some schools not teaching kids handwriting. It's actually a thing, and it has Murray Wood curs...
Operators of Regina’s overdose prevention site are hoping for some good news from the City of Regina this month.
Michael Parker, executive director of the Nēwo Yōtina Friendship Centre, said the organization is waiting for the city to distribute money it has earmarked for harm reduction programs. Applications for up to $500,000 closed at the end of July.
If the city approves the group’s full application, the facility would be able to offer extended hours, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays. It would also be open on weekends.
Currently, the site is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Parker said he’s confident the Friendship Centre’s funding request will be granted, if at least in part.
He has found that public opinion on harm reduction has changed, receiving support from city council and police.
“At this point last year, I would not have anticipated this level of support,” Parker said.
For that, he credits his colleagues at Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon, operators of a supervised consumption site.
“A big thing is the groundbreaking work that Prairie Harm Reduction has done in the province to show that it is possible and can be an effective way of caring for community members,” Parker said.
The overdose prevention site has been given approval to stay open beyond the end of this month.
Parker said the facility recently had its legal exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act renewed, allowing it to stay open until the end of September 2022.
He said the news was a “relief,” allowing the organization to work toward its future plans.
Operators of the Friendship Centre plans to convert the facility into a supervised consumption site, the likes of which exist under a different exemption and are intended to exist long term.
“Our plan is to make a shift to that but in order to do that, we have to go through a different process, including a community consultation,” he said.
Funding from the city would only provide for the site’s short-term needs, Parker said. What he’s looking for is long-term funding from the provincial government, which has refused to meet the funding demands of the supervised consumption site in Saskatoon.
If the Friendship Centre doesn’t get it, the alternative would be fundraising.
“Fundraising just takes up a lot of time and resources. If the government’s willing to fund it, it means we can redirect those efforts back to community service,” Parker said.
“We want to be able to focus on the work. If we have to do the fundraising — and certainly we would never turn donations away — that’s what we’re going to have to do.”
‘We’re just creating more risks and barriers for them’
At its Tuesday meeting, Regina’s board of police commissioners voted to study the possibility of decriminalizing simple drug possession. The report is to be presented back to the board in the first quarter of 2022.
Parker was among the delegates at that meeting. He welcomed the board’s direction, saying criminalizing drug use creates barriers to people who want to use harm reduction services.
Under the Friendship Centre’s CDSA exemption, nobody can be charged with simple possession on facility premises, Parker said. However, people coming to and from the site can be charged. That leads to fears of being surveilled as they enter and leave.
“We know that’s not happening but that fear and perception is still out there,” Parker said.
The motion noted the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have backed decriminalization as a way to mitigate the harms of substance use. The Public Prosecution Service of Canada has also directed employees not to prosecute simple possession charges except in the most serious cases.
During the meeting, Regina Police Chief Evan Bray said police have cut down on the number of simple possession charges. In 2021, there have been 172 charges laid to date, compared to 393 last year.
“There has been some work between police and federal prosecutors to recognize the simple drug possession charges are not the ones that we’re going after. It’s those trafficking charges,” Bray told the Greg Morgan Morning Show this week.
According to crime statistics presented to the board, there have been 933 drug overdoses from January to July. Police attended 174 of them, with 72 resulting in death. Police used naloxone 17 times.
For those who doubt the effectiveness of harm reduction, Parker invites them to consider how well criminalizing addiction has worked.
“It takes folks that are already marginalized and struggling and makes it harder for them to be honest with doctors, to access services and not be turned away. So it’s something that has to be done in the shadows,” he said.
“If you look at a lot of the messaging around how to prevent overdoses, one is not to use alone. When we’re pushing these people further to the margins, we’re just creating more risks and barriers for them to be able to get the help that they might need.”
