New safe-drug supply program in Thunder Bay, Ont., called 'a powerful step' forward

Harm-reduction advocates and front-line workers in Thunder Bay, Ont., are welcoming a new pilot program that helps people who use and rely on illicit drugs receive a prescription for safe opioids and get access to "wraparound" supports like housing and counselling.

The program, operated in the city by the NorWest Community Health Centre as a 15-month pilot, aims to help one of the communities hit hardest by Canada's drug overdose crisis. The concerns centre on the growing rates of overdose deaths in the northwestern Ontario city and across Canada, and reports about the toxicity and unpredictability of the illicit drug supply.

The pilot is being funded by Health Canada, through its Substance Use and Addictions Program, and is among 17 government-backed programs offering or evaluating safer supply programs across the country. Most of the programs are based in larger cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria, Ottawa and Fredericton, but a number of them are in other large urban centres in southern Ontario.

"With the overdoses that we're facing here [in Thunder Bay], funerals are becoming, sometimes it seems, weekly. It's constant," said Kyle Arnold, who has lived experience with addiction and now works as the harm-reduction outreach worker for the safer supply program.

"This is the first step to making a difference here in Thunder Bay. It's a powerful step in the right direction," he said about the new pilot program.

In 2021, 122 people died from an opioid-related overdose in the Thunder Bay district alone, according to data from Public Health Ontario.

That's one person dying nearly every three days last year.

On a per-capita basis, Thunder Bay had an overdose death rate more than three times the average in Ontario, and the most deaths of all public health units in the province. Already this year, between January and August, it's suspected 73 people died from a drug overdose in the district, according to preliminary data from Ontario's chief coroner.

Recent research conducted at Lakehead University also showed just how unpredictable the street supply of drugs has become, with more than two-thirds of study respondents reporting they had unexpected or unknown drugs show up in their system.

"The safer supply programs are intended to replace that toxic street supply where people don't know what they're getting … and ultimately the goal is to prevent death by overdose," said Jennifer Lawrance, director of health services for NorWest.

Lawrance said other potential benefits of the program include:

Under the pilot, people who access the safe drug supply at NorWest will also be offered services from basic first aid, to getting help filling out applications for housing or social assistance and on ways to navigate the justice system, she added.

"Ultimately, over time if you end up with a safer supply program with hundreds of people involved, you could see this could have quite a significant ripple effect," Lawrance said, adding it's too early to know how many people need or may access the program.

Debbie Reid believes her son Johnny may still be alive if this program had existed in Thunder Bay years ago. He died from a drug overdose in March 2020.