March 15, 2022
Peterborough Currents
The Peterborough community has been working to open a safe consumption site since 2017. As months turned into years of delay, over 160 people died of opioid-related causes locally. A site is finally set to open in 2022. What took so long?
Article Highlights:
Peterborough will soon become the 10th Ontario city to open a government-sanctioned supervised drug consumption site. The province announced funding to run the service out of the downtown opioid response hub on Simcoe Street last month.
The push for a safe consumption site in Peterborough stretches back to 2017. As plans for one inched forward, the drug poisoning crisis accelerated – taking more than 160 lives in the Peterborough area since 2017, according to public health data.
“We can’t continue to sit back and see nothing done for this crisis.” - Dr. Thomas Piggot, Peterborough Public Health
The new committee convened for the first time on the morning of July 1, 2019. PARN is still the lead agency on the application, though now the committee is led by MPP Dave Smith.
For the first time, the new committee includes local politicians as part of the working group. City of Peterborough mayor Diane Therrien and deputy mayor for the County of Peterborough Sherry Senis are brought in to work directly on the application alongside Smith.
In early October, Peterborough Drug Strategy partners announced that a five-year lease has been secured to use 220 Simcoe Street as Peterborough’s new opioid response hub and that applications will be made to operate a CTS there. Though PARN will be the active lead on the application, Fourcast is the agency to sign the lease. Salvaterra calls the news “a breakthrough achievement.”
Learn more about MSORT on the "Our Work" Page.
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