COLUMN: Think Again – Prisoners don’t need a supervised consumption site

Collins Bay Institution is a prison located in Kingston, Ontario. On November 28, 2023, Collins Bay opened its overdose prevention service (OPS), the first of its kind in Ontario.

Essentially, the OPS is a room where prisoners can consume their illegal drugs under the supervision of a nurse. Yes, you read that correctly. Prisoners are free to inject themselves with the drugs that they smuggle into prison. In theory, the OPS is supposed to reduce the number of deaths caused by drug overdoses.

Over the last year-and-a-half, Collins Bay spent $517,000 on its OPS. Take a wild guess how many prisoners have availed themselves of this service. The answer is one. Yes, one.

Taxpayers are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars so that one inmate can consume his illegal drugs in a special room. Incidentally, that inmate has only used the OPS a handful of times. What this means is that this room sits empty most of the day. This is an unbelievable waste of taxpayers’ dollars.

However, instead of acknowledging that this service has been a colossal failure, prison officials fell all over themselves making excuses for this empty room. In a CBC interview, Matthew Secord, manager of health and rehabilitation at Collins Bay, suggested that prisoners were afraid of how using this service could affect their prison records. According to Secord, it takes “quite a bit of bravery and courage” to try something new like the OPS.

Maybe I’m looking at this too simply, but I don’t think there’s anything brave or courageous about consuming drugs that you had smuggled into prison. What does take courage is making the decision to enroll in a drug treatment program so that you can ultimately break free from your addiction.

The CBC story also quoted a university professor who spent time studying several OPS sites, including the one in Collins Bay. According to this professor, another reason for the limited use of Collins Bay’s OPS is because it was only open during daytime hours. Apparently, inmates prefer to consume their illegal drugs during their free time after supper.

When asked about this issue, prison officials told this professor that budget constraints were the reason they couldn’t provide this service in the evening. The obvious implication is that the government needs to spend even more money on these supervised consumption sites. Perhaps instead of spending just $517,000 over the last year-and-a-half, the government should have committed $1 million to Collins Bay’s OPS.

Of course, the notion that this supervised consumption site was underfunded is patently absurd. It’s ridiculous that prisoners are allowed to use drugs at all. The whole point of being in prison is that you are being punished for committing crimes against society. I’m not interested in helping prisoners use illegal drugs under any circumstances.

Taxpayers expect their money to be used responsibly. Spending more than $500,000 on a service that has been used by only one inmate is the height of absurdity. Instead of doubling down on this failed experiment, prisons should use this money to tighten security and expand drug treatment programs.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can recognize that prisoners don’t have a right to consume drugs in prison. If prisoners don’t like the restrictions that are placed on them in prison, then they should avoid committing the crimes that led to them being sent there. Some things really are that simple.

Drug addiction is a scourge on society. We need to focus on treatment and prevention, not on making it more convenient for prisoners to continue using illegal drugs.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.