Municipal drug strategy on track

Mental health and addiction affects everyone in the community and everyone owns a piece of the puzzle, said drug strategy co-ordinator Patty Hajdu.

"But they’re not necessarily fitting those jigsaw pieces together," she said.

Last year a plan to create a Municipal Drug Strategy involving the four pillars of the issues – enforcement, treatment, prevention and secondary prevention – was announced and with the report due out by the end of the year, Hajdu said the committee is on track.

"We’re all trying to make the lives of our citizens better but we don’t’ have all the tools in front of us," she said. "By bringing together all those players … I think we’ll have a much stronger solution for our community."

Over the past five years, the average number of arrests per year of intoxicated people is just under 3,000, said Thunder Bay Police Services’ Insp. Scott Smith. With the time spent processing and monitoring those individuals, the costs are close to $1 million in police wages.

"Fifty per cent of our arrests are for intoxicated in public," Smith said. "It definitely is a strain on our services."

Smith said the police recognize the problem is a health issue and not a criminal one and while their duty is to protect the public, he doesn’t feel their role is to house people who have addiction issues.

"We need another solution other than our cell block for people with chronic addictions," he said.

Hajdu said they’ve been impressed with the enthusiastic response from the community while conducting focus groups on the topic.

"It’s been fabulous to have all these people come out and talk to us," she said, noting they spoke to youth, seniors, businesspeople and people in and out of the field when doing their focus groups.

The information gathered from the groups is now being filtered to the next stage, which are strategy sessions where professionals and community members from across the spectrum to come up with solutions and ideas on how to move forward.

"We’re going to try to make sure we have practical, implementable ideas that are included in the strategy as well as some longer-term recommendations," Hajdu said. "This is an opportunity for all of us to come together, take a look at what our resources are and how can we better use our resources to make a difference."