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

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.

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 operations manager for the Centre for Drug Policy Education, which coordinates 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.