LILLEY: Ignore John Tory's call to revive failed drug policy

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The problem with John Tory’s recent op-ed in favour of allowing injection sites next to schools and daycares to stay open is that it ignores all facts. The entire piece makes broad sweeping statements but doesn’t back them up and reads like it was written by activists pushing on this cause rather than the former mayor himself.

Not surprisingly, Tory’s fact-free rant in favour of keeping injection sites open was published without question by the Toronto Star.

He opens by talking about his years of public service and no one can question Tory’s dedication to this city, this province, this country. He then goes on to say that “I also know that the shortest path to progress is paved with evidence — and a strong comprehensive plan.”

The problem is, he provides neither evidence nor a plan.

Tory states as fact that “harm reduction doesn’t simply prevent overdoses and infectious diseases; it eases pressure on Emergency Response Services and our crowded ER’s.” Alright, let’s look at where things have gone over the past several years as we adopted the “harm reduction” model proposed and imposed by Tory.

In 2014, the province saw 3,347 people visit an emergency room due to an opioid overdose. In 2023, that number had risen to 12,951, which was lower than the peak of 17,073 in 2021 in the midst of the pandemic but still higher than 2022’s 12,144.

Over that same time period, the number of deaths from opioid overdoses rose from 676 for the entire province in 2014 to 2,647 in 2023. Again, that’s down from the 2021 peak when 2,858 people died from opioid overdoses.

None of us should ignore the fact that over this time the much deadlier fentanyl replaced heroin and other opioids as the drug of choice. We also shouldn’t ignore that over this same time we vastly expanded our “harm reduction” programs under the promise that doing so would reduce deaths, would take the pressure off our emergency rooms.

Neither promise has been delivered upon, in fact, the numbers have gone in the opposite direction.

The number of ER visits over the last decade have increased by more than 285% while the number of opioid overdose deaths have increased by more than 290%. There is no system in the world, except one driven by blind partisanship or ideology, where those kinds of numbers are considered a success.

There are four pillars to drug policy – prevention, enforcement, harm reduction and treatment – and we have abandoned all of them except harm reduction. Which makes the entire exercise fruitless, especially since we have found out that the activists currently running the system, and whispering in John Tory’s ear, don’t actually believe in treatment.

Tory says in his op-ed that the HART Hubs — Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment Hubs — that the Ford government wants to open are a good idea but is then dismissive of them because there will only be 19 of them in a province with 444 municipalities. Let’s remember that only 10 injection sites are being closed for being too close to schools or child care centres and most of them are concentrated in Toronto.

The model that Tory is advocating a return to was not working.

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In dealing with addictions, it is important to meet people where they are but that doesn’t mean leaving them where they are. That had become the guiding philosophy of these sites and what has become of the so-called harm reduction movement.

Until shortly after Karolina Huebner-Makurat was shot and killed while walking by the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, the website of this facility which operated an injection site next to a school said there was “no judgment, no expectations and no desire for people to stop using drugs.”

We don’t need a return to that philosophy, we don’t need to reopen these centres and this failed policy, and we don’t need to go back to advocating for the decriminalization of all drugs.

If rumours are true, John Tory is contemplating running for mayor again, I can confirm there are backers encouraging him. Tory should come clean with the public on whether he is running for mayor again and if he intends to back failed policies like this if elected.

blilley@postmedia.com