Health committee  I will table that publication. There have been very few studies that have focused exclusively on safe supply without other variables included. That was indeed one of the problems with this study: The number of variables, particularly for marginalized patients, is exceedingly high and not always documented as part of a research study.

Health committee  Thank you. I'll say that the publication is a very good publication. It's not outstanding. It's a retrospective study and a lot more work is needed in this area. More work is being conducted by this group. I think the evidence that is emerging from the study by CRISM on the 11 safe supply sites suggests that safe supply is beneficial to highly marginalized patients, assuming they also receive integrated services alongside the safer supply.

Health committee  I can tell you that there has not been much evidence. Two major publications, of course, appeared in January that have examined safe supply in B.C. specifically. Safer alternatives to the toxic illicit drug supply have existed now for about 25 to 30 years—

Health committee  The study that's been referred to will be looking at the public health impacts of decriminalization on people who use drugs. We'll be looking at the criminal justice impacts. We'll be looking at decriminalizing policy impacts for the general public, looking at the impact on the health service system itself—

Health committee  Absolutely. The Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse is evaluating safe supply in 11 sites across the country. It's in the third year of its examination. The first publications have happened. We're also evaluating the decriminalization, the section 56 exemption for B.C., through this arm's-length evaluation by the health academies and research hospitals.

Health committee  The integrated youth services model, which is now active in nine out of our 13 provinces and territories and in eight indigenous communities, seeks to provide a community-based program for individuals to receive mental health and substance use care, as well as all related services that can allow them to have the best chance for a healthy trajectory, including sexual reproductive services, housing services and the like.

Health committee  Yes, I have—

Health committee  Yes. I know that there's—

Health committee  I don't create policy. I'm a researcher—

Health committee  Thank you very much. The study in the British Medical Journal that has been referred to was published in January and was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. We're very proud of the important work—

Health committee  Unfortunately, the numbers are vanishingly small because currently the safe supply programs are small in number and the number of people actually receiving safe supply is small. In the majority of cases, these are people in marginalized communities who have been seeking the safe supply.

Health committee  Again, I think the data to date on safer supply suggests that anyone who receives it together with allied services is at a lower likelihood of overdosing and having adverse outcomes from street drugs.

Health committee  I can't really speak to comparing and contrasting Portland and Portugal at this point. What I can say—I think it was discussed previously—is that having in place community-driven, comprehensive wraparound services for people who use substances is critically important when we look to begin to destigmatize drug use.

Health committee  If I may, for the evaluation of the safer supply, the most important questions that have been asked as part of this research are about the benefit to people receiving safer supply. The funding for this research did not include specific questions around diversion, which is more of a criminal justice matter than it is a health matter vis-à-vis determining whether or not people receiving safe supply have improved health outcomes, so I can't really comment on the matter.

Health committee  Did you mean prescribed opiates, or did you mean supply on the street itself? I'm sorry. I didn't understand.