No Pride in Policing Coalition (NPPC) condemns Doug Ford’s reckless proposal to close supervised consumption sites in Ontario. His decision to pit funding for rehabilitation against funding for harm reduction will not save more lives, but rather will lead to significant loss of life, criminalization, erosion of health through infections, and will curtail access to lifesaving supports. We know this claim to be true, first, because of overwhelming research evidence published in peer reviewed medical journals. These journals are regulated by the most rigorous standards of scientific reporting1. Second, studies commissioned by the Ford government substantiated what was already known from medical journals, namely that supervised consumption sites save lives and improve access to health and social services, including safe needle disposal, HIV and Hepatitis C testing, and death from overdose2. Finally, several of us in NPPC’s working group know harm reduction and street outreach firsthand. We understand harm reduction as a queer and trans-positive approach to decriminalization and abolition.

Harm reduction and rehabilitation should not be opposed to one another; they can and should supplement each other. Choosing rehabilitation as a single policy forces people into abstinence prior to receiving services. Thousands of people will be excluded from services because they cannot prove abstinence. Health issues are never disconnected from a web of circumstances such as being unhoused, experiencing trauma related to living in the streets, or dealing with chronic pain every waking second. People who must prove abstinence prior to receiving a chance of housing or medical treatment have a likelihood of going without any services, including live-saving harm reduction. People who go without these services will not only deteriorate in terms of their health, but they will lose contact with their community. Networks that emerge in connection with harm reduction, including supervised consumption, are the difference between social death and the possibility of feeling loved and supported. Harm reduction peer support offers people the opportunity to help others in their local networks.

NPPC is speaking out in solidarity with all who are being sidelined and harmed by Ford’s decision. Drug use is a part of all communities, including queer and trans communities. We are concerned that Black, Indigenous and racialized queer and trans folks, especially those who are poor and unhoused, are being treated as though they are disposable. In a telling example, the Consumption and Treatment Service at Moss Park will not be allowed to relocate when its lease expires, even though it is not affected by the Ford government’s arbitrary plan to keep consumption sites away from schools and childcare centres. Gentrification means that there is a pressure to have more of the neighborhood redeveloped for private accumulation, creating a significant loss to collective, vibrant life.

We challenge Ford’s vilification of supervised consumption, as if abstinent rehabilitation is the only choice and can only be offered if harm reduction is shut down. This move will produce more death from overdose, infections, and multiple and interconnected health and social issues; it will intensify criminalization and carcerality. At the same time, Doug Ford is ‘clearing’ the neighborhood of the actual community – real people-networks of loving support -- in favor of private accumulation via real estate development. We say shame!

We demand:
1. The immediate cancellation of the plan to ban supervised consumption sites within 200 meters of schools and childcare centres.
2. Increased funding for a broad spectrum of health supports for people who use drugs, including rehabilitation and detox facilities, needle exchanges, supervised consumption sites, rent-geared-to income housing, counseling services, and public education campaigns.
3. Advocacy to the federal government to end the war on drug users, and to provide redress for people criminalized through their use and distribution of drugs.


1 Ng, J., Sutherland, C. & Kolber, M.R. (2017). Does evidence support supervised injection sites. Canadian Family Physician. 63(11): 866. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5685449/
2 See Jill Campbell’s commissioned report recommended expanded harm reduction services and safe consumption sites