Ontario’s Drug Checking Community has received further support from Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program to extend and expand their public health services and safety program.

This will involve scaling the offsite drug checking model designed and in use by Toronto’s Drug Checking Service since 2019 to other jurisdictions in the province. The primary reason for doing so is to inform evidence-based responses to the worsening toxic drug supply crisis by educating people who use drugs, community health workers, public health units, clinicians, first responders, policy makers, coroners and toxicology laboratories, and others about what’s circulating in the unregulated drug supply and anticipated harms.

The goal by December 2027 is to establish a collection site at a community agency in each of Ontario’s public health unit jurisdictions, for access to the most accurate and timely information on their local unregulated drug supply.

Operated from within MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Ontario’s Drug Checking Community is a national leader in drug checking service delivery and community-led unregulated drug market monitoring and education. We are beyond grateful to continue to serve the community of people who use drugs and inform responses to the toxic drug supply crisis. Thank you to people who use drugs for donating their samples, our members for collecting and analyzing samples, our funders, and our supporters for your ongoing advocacy and use of our program’s findings.