Record numbers of safe use drug supplies distributed in N.L. this year
SWAP's small team of 3 employees carries the load for the entire province
The non-profit harm reduction group Safe Works Access Program (SWAP) distributed record numbers of safe use drug supplies last year in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Highest in demand were glass pipes, clean needles and naloxone kits.
SWAP is the province's sole distributor of supplies that reduce some of the risk involved using illicit drugs — at times, a matter of life or death.
This job rests on the shoulders of a team of three employees.
Spike in mailing fees
SWAP spent nearly $53,000 on Canada Post mailing fees last year — a 28.6 per cent increase from the year before, according to the group's 2023-24 annual report.
"If we weren't able to mail things out to them, to get to at least some of the people there, what else would they have? Nothing," SWAP's program manager Emily Wadden told CBC News.
With just two office locations in St. John's and Corner Brook, the group makes up for the communities it can't reach by mailing deliveries to personal mailboxes, pharmacies and community groups.
"We are so often the only program that people are even able to connect to just based on where they live and if they have access to a cellphone or data," Wadden said.
Dover, Grand Falls-Windsor, Centreville and Hare Bay were the locations with the most delivery requests, the report says. SWAP delivers to over 100 communities, many with populations of under 1,000 residents.
SWAP distributed 5,024 naloxone kits last year, according to the report. Demand for these life-saving kits has been climbing since the COVID-19 pandemic first landed.
But, Wadden said, the 139 per cent increase this year is likely due to the spike in reports of overdose deaths in 2023.
In 2023 alone, 74 people died of a drug overdose in Newfoundland and Labrador.
"It was at that moment I think that people really realized, 'OK, this can actually happen to somebody that I know and I'm better safe than sorry,'" Wadden said.
First-time users
At least 16 per cent of SWAP's program users accessed the group for the first time this year — about 480 of the group's almost 3,000 direct client base. Since these numbers only represent people who collect supplies from one of two SWAP offices, Wadden expects the number of first-time program users to be much higher.
"We know that a large portion comes from just people not knowing about us and accessing us for the first time," Wadden said. "They were already using drugs, just not with our supplies."
The statistics may also show growing fears about the province's increasingly potent unregulated drug market. Methylfentanyl and carfentanil — opioids that are 16 and 100 times stronger than fentanyl — were detected in the province during a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary drug seizure last month.
"You never have to question if your alcohol is different from what the label says," Wadden said. "That's kind of the difference there."
SWAP provides fentanyl and benzodiazepine test strips and offers educational programs and naloxone training. As a harm reduction organization, its goal is to support educated choices in drug use and save users from preventable risks like infection and overdose.
"Its not a type of service, but the way in which the service is provided that is harm reduction," Wadden said.
SWAP describes harm reduction as a non-judgmental, confidential and authentic approach to supporting program users.
Wadden says she doesn't see their services as a means to an end. Rather, she says, it's about supporting individuals in using safe practices when it comes to drug use.
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