Premier's decision doesn't solve problem

The war on drugs is now part of the culture wars in Doug Ford’s Ontario.

- MARTIN REGG COHN

Premier Doug Ford has bristled about supervised sites for years, biding his time until times changed, Martin Regg Cohn writes.

The premier is shutting down many of the province’s safe injection sites by declaring their locations unsafe — too close to schools and child-care centres.

He has finally found a way, bureaucratically, to have his way, politically. In practice, that means government-funded safe sites must be a safe distance of 200 metres or more from schools and child-care centres starting next March.

Ford points out that his government requires all cannabis storefronts to be at least 150 metres from any school. So why should needle exchange sites be any different?

Fair point, but he added an extra 50 metres of distancing for good measure — conveniently ensuring that most existing sites will henceforth be deemed too close for comfort. And destined to be closed down.

It’s a deft approach by the usually blundering and blustering politician. Ford has bristled about supervised sites for years, biding his time until times changed.

Now, times are indeed different, compared to when governments began experimenting with safe injection sites — Toronto’s first supervised consumption service opened in 2017. All these years later, an addiction crisis is decimating a generation of young people, while the fallout from fentanyl is disrupting neighbouring communities.