On August 20th, 2024, the Ontario provincial government announced new legislation that would force the closure of most of Ontario’s 17 supervised consumption services. The government’s rationale for this ban centered on alleged public safety impacts of supervised consumption services on surrounding areas, with government representatives citing increased violent crime in neighbourhoods that implemented the facilities.
The proposed legislation would mandate distance requirements of greater than 200 meters from schools orchildcare facilities, which would result in 10 supervised consumption services to close across the province. The announcement also stated that no new sites would be opened to replace those forced to close.

The government announced this ban without presenting any supporting scientific, clinical, or public health evidence. This report, prepared by the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, is intended to fill this gap. Herein, we present data from multiple data sources, including:

1) evidence compiled by the provincial government itself;

2) international scientific evidence; as well as evidence from an ongoing Toronto-based scientific evaluation of supervised consumption services in  Ontario on

3) public health impacts of supervised consumption services; and

4) the association between supervised consumption services and major crimes in Toronto.

Both internal ministry reports and taxpayer-funded external expert analyses consistently demonstrate a range of public health and public safety benefits of supervised consumption services.