Red Deer city council hears passionate support for overdose prevention site
CBC
Physicians, social workers, business owners, former drug users and family members of people who died from drug poisonings told Red Deer city councillors on Thursday what they want to see happen to the city's overdose prevention site (OPS).
The majority of speakers at the non-statutory public hearing spoke in favour of the site, which opened in October 2018 in response to surging deaths due to opioid poisonings.
The facility operates in an ATCO trailer next to the Safe Harbour Society, which runs the central Alberta city's homeless shelter.
Services were provided by non-profit harm reduction agency Turning Point until May 2023 when the government transferred operations to Alberta Health Services.
Thursday's public hearing was sparked by a motion introduced by Coun. Vesna Higham before Christmas.
Higham would like to see the site closed by the end of 2024, while the province increases the availability of different forms of harm reduction services. Her motion, if passed, would not be binding on the province or Alberta Health Services.
Meagan Ophus, an Indigenous social work student, told council about how the OPS helped her when she was addicted to meth. Now sober for four years, she said using drugs was the only way to cope with the bullying, racism and abuse she faced growing up.
Ophus said staff at the OPS gave her and others hope.
"This site gives us people living with addiction a chance to live for tomorrow," she said. "They helped me to live another day."
Wendy Little, with the group Moms Stop the Harm, lost her son Quinn, 22, in 2020.
She told council that her mission is to reduce the stigma around drug use while also reducing harm and the number of overdose deaths.
The Alberta model, which emphasizes recovery over harm reduction, isn't the only way to address the drug crisis, she told council.
"This model does not provide adequate harm reduction services to protect people from the toxic drug supply that is the biggest problem," Little said.
"Dead people cannot recover. Quinn will never recover."
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