Drug checking in Toronto could be significantly impacted by closure of supervised consumption sites

Samples of unregulated substances being tested by Toronto's Drug Checking Service. (TDCS/St. Michael's Hospital photo)

Ontario’s plan to shut down six supervised consumption sites in Toronto may significantly impact one local organization’s ability to verify and analyze the city’s unregulated drug supply.

Toronto’s Drug Checking Service (TDCS) says if the proposed move happens it will lose six of its 10 collection sites. Roughly 80 per cent of all samples gathered by the program since it’s inception five years ago come from these locations, it said.

“The reality is if these six sites close it could potentially greatly impact our ability to offer drug checking services and monitor the unregulated drug supply,” Karen McDonald, the director of the free and anonymous public health service, told CP24.com.

“If these sites close our program we would need to pivot. We’d need to re-evaluate where and how we’d operate.”

Since the fall of 2019, the federally funded service has collected and analyzed upwards of 15,000 samples in Toronto, providing timely information about what’s in the city’s unregulated drug supply, including identifying new substances.

The service regularly publishes reports online summarizing their findings, often drawing attention to the presence of high-potency opioids and other unregulated drugs.

In their last report on Aug. 23, TDCS found that 19 per cent of expected fentanyl samples contained at least one high-potency opioid associated with overdoses. It also found that 16 per cent of the expected fentanyl samples contained a veterinary tranquilizer.

The community based service provides a drug education component that helps inform and in turn provide more “meaningful care and treatment” for substance users, McDonald said.

“(These) closures would inhibit the ability of people who use drugs (PWUD) to make informed decisions related to their substance use, disrupt pathways to services and treatment, and hinder evidence-informed responses by PWUD, community heath workers, clinicians, first responders, policy makers, public health units, researchers and others,” the service said in a Sept. 4 memo.

Toronto’s Drug Checking Service is one of three comprehensive programs of its kind in Canada. The other two are in Victoria and Vancouver, B.C.

Currently, there are 10 drug collection sites in Toronto’s downtown core.

Six of those locations – Toronto Public Health’s The Works at 277 Victoria St., Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre’s (CHC) Queen West site at 168 Bathurst St., South Riverdale CHC’s KeepSIX site at 955 Queen St. E., Regent Park CHC at 465 Dundas St. E., The Neighbourhood Group’s Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site at 260 Augusta Ave., and Toronto Shelter and Support Services’ Seaton House Overdose Prevention Site at 339 George St. – were recently ordered to shut down by the province by March 2025 as they fall within 200 metres of a school or child care centre.

The four other sites where TDCS will continue to collect samples are Parkdale Queen West CHC’s Parkdale site at 1229 Queen St. W., South Riverdale CHC’s Moss Park site at 134 Sherbourne St., Casey House at 119 Isabella St., and Street Health at 338 Dundas St E.

The Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site is one of six supervised consumption services in Toronto slated to be closed by March 2025. (Joanna Lavoie/CP24)

Earlier this week, McDonald told CP24.com that they’ve been getting lots of questions about the future of the service since the provincial government announced the ban on Aug. 20. On that day, the province also announced that it would not be allowing the opening of any new supervised consumption programs.

McDonald said that while drug checking can be offered at non-SCS sites, a lot of time and effort has gone into building relationships with the harm reduction programs and organizations it has partnered with and losing those connections could create a notable gap in the work they do.

“In order to collect drug samples, we need to be meeting people where they’re at and are actively using. … We require access to samples in a timely way and this model has been working,” she said.

McDonald said that many people who use drugs attend harm reduction programs and it only makes sense to offer drug checking where supervised consumption takes place.

“Our data collection services are best integrated within harm reduction services,” she said.

Toronto’s Drug Checking Service further noted that closing these sites would impact service users’ access to a “continuum of care” pointing to a survey it conducted in its early stage that found that 42 per cent of those surveyed had not previously accessed harm reduction services. The service also found that 21 per cent of those surveyed said they intended to use a supervised consumption site after receiving their drug checking results.

For now it’s business as usual, but the way Toronto’s Drug Checking Service operates could drastically change next March when these six sites close their doors, McDonald said.

CP24.com has contacted the Ontario Ministry of Health as well as Premier Doug Ford’s office for comment.

A ministry spokesperson provided a one-line statement from an Aug. 20 news release when asked about whether or not drug collection would be offered at its new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) hubs, which the province is calling a “comprehensive system of care that prioritizes community safety and focuses on giving people their lives back through treatment and recovery, as well as upstream investments in prevention.”

“With a focus on treatment and recovery, HART Hubs will not offer ‘safer’ supply, supervised drug consumption or needle exchange programs,” Hannah Jensen wrote in an email.

Ford’s office has not responded to our request at this time.