Toronto’s Board of Health unanimously approved recommendations by the medical officer of health to update to the city’s overdose action plan.

The update will call upon the province to extend the approval limit for overdose prevention sites by six months, allowing a site to remain open legally for a year at a time.

The board also voted on whether to urge provincial implementation of opioid programs, including making treatment more accessible within the community and to working with the provincial and federal governments to “scale up actions” in response to the opioid crisis. This includes continued funding and investment in addiction support services.

City councillor and chair of the Toronto Drug Strategy Implementation Panel, Joe Cressy, says the updates are meant to help prevent the “unnecessary deaths” of Toronto residents.

“In the City of Toronto and in the country of Canada, we are facing the largest public health emergency since the HIV crisis of the 80s,” Cressy told CTV News Toronto. “In the City of Toronto alone we had 303 people die last year.

Cressy says that opioid overdose is now the largest cause of death in young people, “even more than collisions.”

The new updates are meant to act as a “public health response” to the opioid crisis, merging treatment, prevention, and harm reduction into one plan that will help reduce the loss of life in Toronto.

“These sites play a role in keeping people alive long enough that they have a chance to get treatment,” Cressy said.

The temporary overdose prevention site in Moss Park was granted provincial permission on May 11, to operate in a nearby building for six months. The previously unsanctioned site had been operating out of a tent, and later a trailer, in the park since August 2017, providing access to trained nurses and the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

The new funding and partnership with the South Riverdale Community Health Centre means the overdose prevention site will now be operating legally in the City of Toronto.

Premier-designate Doug Ford has been vocal about supporting treatment for mental health and addiction, but not through the use of safe injection sites. During his provincial election campaign, he told a crowd he was “dead against them.”

There are also city councilors who say overdose prevention sites enable dangerous and disruptive behaviour. Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti issued a statement in May saying that the sanctioning of overdose prevention sites like the one in Moss Park would lead to more violence in neighbourhoods.

“The addicts are at risk and so are those in the community,” Mammoliti said. “All this is going to do is bring addicts on to the sidewalks. They are going to feel comfortable taking drugs on the sidewalks they will be comfortable using these facilities to shoot the heroin or any other drug they are using.”

Cressy said there is no evidence to support a correlation between overdose prevention sites and violence in a community.

“In more than 100 sites around the world, what the research has shown is that more often than not there is a reduction in petty crime and petty theft in the areas around the sites,” he said. “We currently have four supervised prevention sites and we have not seen a demonstrable increase in violence and crime. “

In 2017, there were 303 people who died over an opioid overdose in Toronto. More than 1,200 died in Ontario.

The recommendations will now be sent to city council for final approval.