Addiction harm reduction questioned again at Charlottetown city council

Some Charlottetown city councillors continue to express doubts about the Native Council of P.E.I.'s harm reduction program, which for four years has been providing services for Islanders with drug addictions.

The group's mobile harm reduction team operates in Charlottetown six days a weekbut provides services across P.E.I. Those services include distributing clean needles, pipes, and naloxone kits to reverse the effects of opioid overdose.

Given recent concerns about discarded needles in Charlottetown especially in the Euston Street area near the Community Outreach Centre during a special meeting of city council with the Indigenous group Monday Coun.Justin Muttartexpressed concerns about how well the program works.

"It seems to be an avenue to allow people to continue down a certain path," Muttart said.

"I'm just really conflicted with thinking that this is providing the help that people need providing them with the ability and use of needles as opposed to providing the real support that they need and helping them get the treatment that they need."

Bradley Cooper, political advisor with NCPEI, was at the meeting to give a presentation on the group's work. Cooper acknowledged concerns about dirty needles, and said he shared them.

"We are aware needles are definitely a concern for citizens and that there shouldn't be as many dirty needles out on the streets," he said.

"We're doing our part to try and reduce the amount of dirty needles out there, but still servicing our clients in the harm reduction model the best way that we can."

Cooper noted his group actually collects more used needles than it distributes. Last year the Native Council of P.E.I. handed out about 6,600 needles and more than 7,000 were returned, Cooper said.

The organization's needles are distributed in packages of 10 along with a black safe container for disposal. In his discussions with Charlottetown police and RCMP, he has been told officers have never found one of their safe containers thrown out on the street. He noted it is also part of the group's work to collect discarded needles if they are told about them.

Different goals

Harm reduction is the understanding people living with addictions may not be interested in recovery right away, Cooper said.

"Harm reduction is just making sure that while they are going through their addictions they're not catching HIV or they are not having to commit to criminal activities or live homeless," he said.

"It's just about supporting them where they are at in their life right now."

He said he understands that can be difficult to understand.

"Within the harm reduction model it's not supposed to be the end goal that they do recover from their addictions. It may be the fact they live with addictions the rest of their life and harm reduction is going to be the one and only support that they access," he said.

"We have to still have that prevailing thought for them. Just because someone is using drugs they are not deserving of catching HIV or other blood-borne diseases. So, we're still trying to support them but we, as the Native Council, still support our clients in moving toward more permanent solutions with recovering with addictions if possible."

NCPEIwill referclients to addictions services, he said.

Indigenous-led services

The Native Council mainly services Indigenous people, but doesn't turn away non-Indigenous individuals from accessing services, Cooper said, adding there needs to be more Indigenous-led addictions services.

"Currently within P.E.I. we have Mount Herbert, which does provide some support but it is not Indigenous informed.It's not indigenous led. Many of our clients don't feel safe accessing colonial medical systems," Cooper said.

"There's only six Indigenous informed addictions treatment centres in the Atlantic provinces. Two in Nova Scotia, three in New Brunswick and one youth one in Newfoundland. Many of our clients don't want to be shipped off Island to attend addictions treatments."

Often people are expected to be a week sober before accessing addictions services and many of the programs have long waitlists, Cooper said.

"This is where we are seeing harm reduction kind of filling in that gap right away," he said.

Staying humble

NCPEI is also moving away from needles in favour of pipes, which cause less of a health concern for the community and are discarded less often because they are used multiple times, Cooper said.

About 10 NCPEI clients have switched from needles permanently.

While the organization acknowledges some drug users may never move past the harm reduction stage, there are people who recover after being referred to addictions services, Cooper said.

"We've had one or two clients who have been interested in full-time recovery support so we have provided them transportation off-Island to attend the addictions treatment centre in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and they have made full recoveries," he said.

"While we do appreciate and love when they do go through recovery we also make sure to stay humble, that recovery is not the end goal for some of these clients."

In October NCPEI called for the resignation of Coun. Mitch Tweel following comments made about a mobile harm reduction van run by the organization.

A meeting was held with city councillors including Tweel.The organization and Tweel came to a private agreement, Cooper said.

Tweel was not at council for the presentation because he was "running late," he said.