P.E.I.'s PEERS Alliance is having some honest conversations with illegal drug users in the community, and it hopes it can carry some of those conversations forward to Charlottetown city council.

The alliance held the first in a series of three workshops on harm reduction for drug users in Charlottetown last week.

"It's about having open honest conversations with community members," said program coordinator Angele DesRoches.

While there is a focus on safer smoking, safer snorting, safer injections, the workshops are not a one-way delivery of information, said DesRoches.

"It's great for community-based organizations or health authorities to go into a community with really aspirational messages around harm reduction," she said.

"But in having a bit of a dialogue and exchange we can meet community members where they're at, right?"

Changing drug-use trends

There were about a dozen people at the workshop, which was directed at women, trans and non-binary folks.

They were able to update the workshop leaders on the latest trends in Charlottetown, which DesRoches said are moving away from opioids and back toward stimulants such as amphetamines and cocaine.

'Substance use has been, you know, a part of human history since we've been recording history,' says Angele DesRoches. (PEERS Alliance)

Workshop attendants also flagged issues with Charlottetown's needle exchange, which is run by public health and open three afternoons a week. The open times can be difficult for some people to get to, the workshop leaders heard.

As well, given the stigma around drug use, said DesRoches, people can be reluctant to go to a needle exchange connected to government.

"Women, for example, are often concerned about is this information going to get back to a social worker? Is this going to be an issue in terms of, you know, maintaining custody of my children?" she said.

Charlottetown drug houses and safer using

Not using alone is a key message for safer drug use.

There was a discussion about safe-use sites, but there are concerns that even in Charlottetown a safe-use site would be available to only a limited number of users From there, the conversation turned to existing drug houses — which one city councillor has called a plague on the city.

DesRoches argues the solution to the problem is not as simple as just shutting down drug houses, and that harm reduction is a new way of approaching the problem.

"It just is about being willing to look at an old problem in a new way," she said. "A harm-reduction approach acknowledges that substance use has been, you know, a part of human history since we've been recording history.

"I think there's enough information that has been collected to say that the war on drugs has been an epic failure."

Moving the conversation

PEERS executive director Brittany Jakubiec said the city has been open to discussions with the alliance in the past, such as on the issue of gender-neutral washrooms, and she is hopeful more constructive conversations are possible.

"I feel like city council would be receptive to having a conversation with PEERS around harm reduction and how that might influence some of the policies that they're working on," said Jakubiec.

PEERS Alliance plans to hold a second workshop in Summerside Monday, March 9, at the public library starting at 6:30 p.m., and a third in partnership with the Native Council of P.E.I. on March 17.

The workshops are presented in collaboration with the Community Foundation of Canada with support from the federal government.

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