Downtown Association pushes for crackdown on IV drug use

Sault Ste. Marie's Downtown Association is leaning hard on city police to reduce intravenous (IV) drug use in Queenstown.

At the business group's June board meeting, vice chair Paul Scornaienchi repeatedly needled Insp. Derek Dewar on what he said is a rapidly growing problem.

"We've noticed a very large increase of individuals just doing drugs," Scornaienchi told the inspector.

"And as you know, in the downtown we have our children going to dance and music [lessons] and we have children shopping amongst all of our merchants. Is it still against the law to do drugs out on the street?" Scornaienchi asked.

"If you're talking IV drugs... it is still illegal to do," Dewar responded.

"If an officer goes by and observes somebody sitting on that bench shooting up, then you can arrest that person for possession. It's up to the officer whether they're going to proceed with a charge for that or not.

"With a lot of the marginalized people, it's just really victimizing somebody that already has addiction issues and a multitude of other issues as well.

"So most times the officers don't do that charge but they try to talk them into getting counselling. The Downtown Ambassador program has been exceptionally helping us with that and offering services for people. But that's usually the way that will happen. Obviously, whatever drug they were using, we then dispose of it properly," Dewar said.

"We're seeing a big increase to the point where they're just comfortable doing that," Scornaienchi responded.

"So if you can just bring that notation to your team, because it's exponentially getting [worse]," he said.

"We recognize that," replied Insp. Dewar.

"They're doing the best they can as far as the officers are expected. They do have discretion. No two people are exactly alike. Their circumstances are different. So they're all dealt with individually. But the officer who comes across it should be stopping if they see them using drugs."

But Scornaienchi wasn't backing down.

"Again, if you can kindly bring it to your team because it might be something that we could assist with," he said.

"You can't change any of your processes for it, but it's just getting exponentially worse."

Asked whether a safe-injection site might be the best solution for Queenstown's IV drug issue, Dewar said: "I'm not going to go into depth about them. They have their pros and cons for both, in certain circumstances. Absolutely, they'd be useful for things of that nature.

"But I think if you look at the studies briefly and then in the long term, they're not overly productive."

Dewar told the Downtown Association board that with the new police division opening at 180 Brock Street, the space police have been using inside Station Mall will be closing.

"That was more a community-based station, whereas the new one's an operational one."

"The existing mall location wasn't exactly suited for an operational purpose. It was more suited for meetings and things of that nature," Dewar said.