Lethbridge's Supervised Consumption Site. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Lethbridge's SCS faces the most problems

Alberta’s Supervised Consumption Sites: a “system of chaos”

Mar 5, 2020 | 11:57 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The provincial government’s review of supervised consumption sites (SCS) in Alberta has been released. Most of the findings are not positive.

An eight-member committee was tasked to look into SCS services and consulted more than 19,000 Albertans through online surveys, in-person town halls, and by other measures.

As previously reported by LNN, the panel’s mandate was to investigate crime rates, needle debris, residential property values, emergency medical services calls, business impacts, data collection, referrals to treatment providers, overdose referrals, and proposals for solutions to address the impacts of SCS.

What was not in their scope was the merits of SCS’s as harm reduction tools, the utility of these services in each community, expanding SCS’s outside of the current or proposed sites, and social issues such as housing and homelessness.

Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jason Luan said that what they heard “was a wakeup call.”

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“What we see is a system of chaos. Chaos for addicts who desperately need help getting well and chaos for communities around the site.”

The report, which can be read in full online here, details various the findings of sites including the one in Lethbridge.

“It was the Committee’s impression that the Lethbridge SCS site may be facing the most problems in the province, since the expressed concerns were disproportionately higher than expressed at other sites,” reads the report.

“An increase in crime rates was one of the key concerns raised by many who attended the town hall meetings in Lethbridge.”

According to the report, many residents feel there is a “safe zone for open drug use, trafficking, prostitution, and related criminal activity” around Lethbridge’s SCS.

The local site had by far the most usage, as a previous report from Alberta Health found that there were 248,012 visits to the SCS in Lethbridge, which is more than all of Alberta’s other sites combined.

A major complaint they heard in Lethbridge is around needle debris.

“The situation in Lethbridge, however, is reportedly exacerbated by the particular policy of needle distribution that allows drug users to obtain excessively high quantities of needles — that is, packages of 200 to 500 needles at a time — simply upon request. ARCHES reports that it distributes somewhere between 13,000 to 15,000 needles per month.”

The report found that this SCS is “estimated to be one of the costliest on a per-capita (client) basis. While most of the other sites have a cost under $600 per unique client, the cost in Lethbridge is over five times that, at $3,270.”

The provincial review quoted an article from LNN about the owner of Hamilton’s Carpet One posting photos and videos of nearby drug usage and other issues. “This has resulted in equally hostile and aggressive responses including purported death threats by the site’s supporters.”‘

The review found that most of the community’s concerns were directed at the operations of Lethbridge’s SCS, including “how it is being run, the behaviour of its employees, an apparent lack of accountability, alleged occurrences of flagrant and open criminal activity around the site, its isolation from the greater community and several questions about the integrity of how data are submitted. The Review Committee also heard from some medical professionals that they would not work in this place as it is ‘unethical'”.

Minister Luan said there were “disturbing allegations of financial irregularities of ARCHES, who is a provider of supervised consumption services in Lethbridge.”

As a result, a team of auditors was sent to Lethbridge to investigate.

Luan adds that decisions regarding supervised consumption services will be made on a city-by-city basis. They will, however, accept the full report as it stands.

No timeline was given for when decisions will be made.

Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman and City Councillor Blaine Hyggen both say, in the wake of this report, the city’s SCS needs to stay open. More details here.