February 20, 2023

The Honourable Carolyn Bennett
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions; Associate Minister of Health
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6

Dear Minister Bennett,

As people who use drugs, sustainable, stable, safer supply and harm reduction programs are essential to our survival.

Safer supply programs funded by Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP) have undoubtedly saved lives through the provision of pharmaceutical-grade alternatives to toxic street drugs.

We know that giving people alternatives to the volatile unregulated drug supply keeps them alive and improves their quality of life. This is not a new concept – drug users have been advocating for safer supply models for decades. Research is catching up, demonstrating that safer supply is actively saving lives and empowering people to lead full lives.

Now, safer supply needs stability and to grow. Without increased, robust, and sustained funding to support this life-saving health and social care, lethal drugs will continue to take the lives of our friends, loved ones, and community members. Our communities will continue to suffer. Our friends and loved ones will continue to have no choice but to seek the drugs they need to stay well from the street.

The expertise and inclusion of those who use drugs are crucial to the provision of safer supply and harm reduction services across the country. When funding is inconsistent and unpredictable, drug users – especially those holding (often underpaid and undervalued) “peer worker” or “harm reduction worker” roles – are often the first people to have their positions cut or reduced from program delivery models. The precarity of these positions results in a serious lack of paid or meaningful work, and little opportunity for advancement for people who use drugs, in a sector in which they are the true experts.

Drug users are equity-deprived. Colonialism, alongside structural and systemic discrimination, perpetuates the disproportionate impacts of criminalization on people who use drugs. Criminalization also produces and reinforces barriers to care and increases the volatility of the toxic unregulated drug supply, particularly for drug users who are members of other intersectional equity-deprived communities.

These structural and systemic trends of injustice persist in safer supply and harm reduction programs, resulting in inequitable access to pharmaceutical-grade alternatives for disenfranchised community members. There is a clear need for more safer supply programs that are rooted in equity, cultural relevance, and anti-oppression.

Federal support for safer supply programs has already saved lives. It is now time to commit to stable, sustainable funding for programs and to implement a broader, more equitable range of options.

We, the undersigned, urge the Federal government to immediately:

1) Increase and expand funding for prescribed safer supply programs located in community and primary care settings that are rooted in harm reduction and person-centered care;

2) Support the expansion and development of safer supply and harm reduction programs that are culturally relevant, anti-oppressive, and rooted in equity;

3) Permit and finance non-medicalized, community-led compassion club models of safer supply;

4) Fully decriminalize drugs and the people who use them; and,

5) Establish a federally-regulated supply of pharmaceutical-grade alternatives to the toxic unregulated drug supply.

Government policies and the resources that fund services for people who use drugs make the difference between us flourishing and thriving, or suffering and perishing.

Action for Safer Supply
Working Group of People Who Use Drugs
National Safer Supply Community of Practice