CALGARY—In a now-deleted tweet, the Alberta minister in charge of the government review of supervised drug consumption sites questioned Tuesday whether harm reduction research is supported by big pharmaceutical companies, calling for “full disclosure.”

By Wednesday morning, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jason Luan had deleted the tweet responding to Petra Schulz, a co-founder of the harm-reduction advocacy organization Moms Stop the Harm. Schulz tweeted that there is “solid evidence” backing up supervised consumption services, and Luan responded that the reviews “never reference the impact to the surrounding community & business. They only focused on the benefits of harm reduction to the users.”

He continued: “How much of the so-called ‘evidence-based research’ is funded by the multibillion-dollar Pharma industry? Full disclosure is needed.”

It’s a claim that researchers say has no evidence behind it.

“I don’t know where it comes from,” said University of Calgary health sociologist Rebecca Haines-Saah, who studies harm reduction and drug policy.

“Every researcher who publishes in a journal has to declare their conflicts of interest and their funding sources,” she said.

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“We’re not funded by the makers of naloxone or other drugs. That’s just preposterous. I’ve never heard this,” Haines-Saah said.

In order to operate a supervised consumption site — a place where people can use substances with staff on hand to reverse an overdose or provide additional medical care if necessary — Health Canada must grant an exemption. The application requires extensive consultations with communities surrounding the proposed site, as well as input from the city, police and the province’s health authority. Organizations also need to have security plans and they have to prove they can finance the site.

The United Conservative government said last month that funding for three proposed supervised consumption sites in Alberta is on hold until it completes a review of the services, which will include a “socioeconomic analysis” of the sites’ impact.

Supervised drug-use sites are currently operating in Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge and Grande Prairie, and Red Deer has a temporary overdose prevention site. While Edmonton has four sites, including one just for in-patients at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Calgary has just a single site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.

The government review has put sites planned for Calgary, Medicine Hat and Red Deer on hold.

Luan’s press secretary Steve Buick said Luan himself made the decision to delete the tweet, calling it “a casual remark that he shouldn’t have made.”

“The minister deleted it because it didn’t represent any considered view. It was just a casual remark. It was not intended to prejudge the review,” Buick said.

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Buick added that the tweet “should not stand as a statement of (Luan’s) position.”

Haines-Saah said even though the tweet was deleted, she has concerns about what it might mean.

“It’s not an offhand comment because it’s actually our conflict of interest and our credibility as scientists,” she said. “To imply that just shows no knowledge of research at all, so I have zero confidence that this review will be based on good science.”

Details of the provincial government review haven’t yet been announced, but Buick said they’d be released within “a couple weeks.” The plan is to have results ready in the fall, with decisions going forward from there. The government is assembling an expert panel to advise it on the review, but the members of the panel haven’t yet been confirmed.

NDP MLA Heather Sweet demanded Wednesday afternoon that Luan apologize to researchers in the province for his comments.

Sweet said she sees other social media statements from Luan as an indication that he doesn’t see value in supervised consumption services.

“That is demonstrating a clear bias toward these safe consumption sites, and the minister and the premier need to be honest and tell people what they truly believe around these safe consumption sites.”

Buick said the UCP government supports harm reduction as part of a “continuum of care” including prevention, treatment and recovery services. The government is currently considering whether to mandate the review to evaluate all Alberta’s sites, he explained, since the process will be looking at the evidence from the existing sites anyway.

“If the review finds an overwhelming and extreme impact, then in theory it’s possible that we could judge that a site should be moved, for example, or in theory, reduced or closed,” Buick said.

“But we are certainly not meaning to signal that that’s likely or that’s our intent. All we mean is the review is open.”

According to the latest Alberta government statistics on opioid-related deaths in the province, 137 people in the province died due to fentanyl poisoning in the first three months of 2019. That’s down from the final months of 2018.

A monthly average of 1,849 unique clients used supervised consumption sites across the province from January to March of 2019.

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