Montreal public health backs Toronto call to decriminalize personal drug use

The director of Montreal's public health agency iswelcominga recent appeal fromher counterparts in Toronto for all personal use of illicitdrugsto be decriminalized.

In a newsrelease Friday, Dr. Mylne Drouin said decriminalization a moratorium on criminal penalties is at the heart of ongoing discussions across Canada about how best to respond to drug addictionand to the opioidcrisis, in particular.

It is "one of the measures to consider in the public health response to a problem without precedence in numerous Canadian cities," the statement reads.

Earlier this month, Toronto Public Health released a reporturging the city council to lobby the federal government to decriminalize alldrug use, while increasing harm-reduction efforts.

The recommendation came after a public consultation processwhich showed that many Torontoresidents believed the current approach to drug abusewasn't working.

In its statement, Montreal's public health agency points to the experience of Portugal, which decriminalized the use of all drugs in 2001. It says the result has beenreduced use of the courts, greater social insertion, reduced stigma and the dismantling of barriers that prevent people with drug dependencies from getting treatment.

"They've also recorded fewer drug overdoses overall, a reduction in HIV-infection rates among drug usersand a lower level of synthetic drug use," the agency said.

Quebec's$35M anti-addiction strategy

Earlier this week, the Quebec government announced plans to inject $35 million into the province's program to dealwith addiction, including dependence on drugs, notablyopioids.

While there were more than1,000 opioid-overdose deaths reported in Ontario in 2017, in Quebec, with just over two-thirds of Ontario's population, the total was 181, Quebec Health Minister Gatan Barrette said, and the total for Canada as a whole was 3,611.

"One death is too many," Barrette said.

"Even though here are fewer, we should still take action to ensure there are even less."

Montreal is home to four safe-injectionsites, where trained health-care workers areon hand to supervise injections and intervene in the event of an overdose.

The number of visits to Montreal's supervised injection sites more than doubled in the year since since the safe-injection sitesfirst opened last summer.