Canada: Injection Site for Toronto Under Study

For more than a year, researchers have been assessing the feasibility of supervised injection facilities in Toronto and Ottawa. SIFs provide users a place to inject drugs under medical supervision and care. Toronto's City Council requested the feasibility study based on recommendations from a city drug strategy that members approved in 2005.

"This is a study to look at whether it makes sense to have a site or not, whether there should be one site or multiple sites or no sites, and whether the sites, if there should be any, should be fixed or mobile," said Dr. Ahmed Bayoumi, an investigator with the Center for Research on Inner City Health at St. Michael's Hospital.

Last year, Bayoumi co-authored a Canadian Medical Association Journal study that found Insite, an SIF in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighborhood, will prevent 1,000 HIV infections and save the province $14 million (US $12.9 million) over 10 years. The same analytic modeling system will be used for the Toronto and Ottawa study.

"We showed Insite saved money and extended lives," Bayoumi said. "But that was very specific for Vancouver." Drug use in Toronto is not as concentrated in one area as in Vancouver, he said. The high level of crack cocaine use in Toronto "raises another whole set of issues, including providing services for people whose risks are more associated with smoking rather than injecting," he said.

Bayoumi and colleagues will be surveying public health officials and first-responders for their opinions about such a facility. The team will also be sounding out business owners and residents, including a focus group in the Parkdale and Bloor/Landsdowne areas, for their views on drug use and the need for SIFs.

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