IN THIS BULLETIN...
Last Friday's meeting, July 19th, was chaired by Vice President Marva Wisdom. She started the meeting with our national anthem and a moment of silence to reflect on the things each of us are thankful for.
After the reflection, Dianne Dance provided an impromptu, but wonderful land acknowledgment at the request of Marva.
Dianne said, "as a settler on this land we have an important responsibility to acknowledge the treaty grounds on which we're privileged to gather and as we pursue fellowship and ongoing community engagement as Rotarians. Guelph is situated on treaty land that has been a home to a variety of peoples over time, and we thank all the generations of the people who have taken care of this land. We acknowledge the historic Mississaugas of the Credit the First Nation people who were treaty signatories of the territory on which we are meeting treaty."
Dianne then asked the club if we knew what Treaty land we reside in. No one at the meeting was able to answer. She confirmed that it is Treaty 3, known as the Treaty Between the Lakes and it was signed in 1792.
She reminded us that, "the big thing about the reconciliation is this is our or the lead acknowledgement. This is our opportunity to say what we are going to do and support a reconciliation, and learning these things is what we can do. It's a very small thing, but you can do it and that's the thing that we can do to support our indigenous people as we all work towards reconciliation. So I'm going to stop there."
Marva thanked Dianne for the land acknowledgment and turned the mic over to Helmuth to introduce our guests. Jean Hopkins and Carly George were introduced as our guests and speakers from the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy (WGDS). Randy Seagar was introduced by Helmuth as the "erstwhile lost soul who has returned momentarily," to much laughter and applause from the club, and Gail van Veen was welcomed, the wife of David van Veen.
Helmuth then thanked Terrie Jarvis for the story she did about the Paul Harris fellow, Robert Melbourne. He then discussed how he found an equally wonderful story about Robert in the Wellington Advertiser that his optometrist pointed out to him.
Marva then opened the podium to club announcements and happy bucks. Jules Croskill made an announcement about her wedding that Tracey Curtis officiated and how wonderful she made the whole experience.
Marty Fairbairn made an announcement on behalf of Matt, and in appreciation to Randy Seagar (who made many an announcement on the topic) about signups for club meetings. He reminded everyone to confirm their attendance by Thursday.
Marty then pivoted to Lobsterfest ticket sales. So far the committee has sold 100 tickets, which is a faster rate than usual. Details for Lobsterfest can be found below. He also reminded everyone to start bringing bottles of wine to meetings for the wheelbarrow-full-of-wine.
Aidan Harris made an announcement about the Eradicating Human Trafficking Committee's annual flag raising event to raise awareness of human trafficking in the Guelph region. Details for the event, which will be held this Tuesday, at 9:00 AM, can be found in the story below.
After announcements, lunch was served. Crista Renner introduced our speaker, Jean Hopkins, "Jean is the manager of the Wellington Guelph Drug strategy. It's a coalition of community partners partners, working to minimize the harms related to substance use in Guelph and Wellington County. She is highly collaborative, as we've witnessed with Marva's introduction of what she's doing with Guelph Tiny Homes coalition... She has extensive experience leading complex multi stakeholder projects within social services, regulatory regulatory bodies and post secondary and fire departments. She holds 15 years experience in a broad range of roles including the lead on the substance use and drug policy portfolio with CMHA Ontario. So Jane is out there doing the big work. She has previously worked as a clinical social worker in the community based addiction sector, and she holds a Master's of Science and a Master of Social Work from Laurier. She is a mom to a fabulous five year old who sounds incredibly precocious and dynamic. And a dog with an awesome name, Zamboni."
Jean began her presentation by covering some of the changing terminology in her field. Instead of "overdoses" medical professionals and services provides are using the term "drug poisoning". This is intentional for several reasons. First, overdose implies that someone used too much of a drug, which is often not the case with unpredictable toxicity levels. Two, it takes some of the blame away from the individual to focus on prevention and recovery instead of stigmatization.
Jean then explained that the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy is a coalition of agencies, " I think that's really crucial here. We have a lot of people who are involved in our work who have lived experience of substance use. And we are working to implement a four pillar drug strategy, the municipalities of Wellington County, and of course in the city of Guelph, and so these are the four pillars here. So we have prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery and community safety."
Their broad coalition is formed from organizations and individuals that are in the community doing work under these four pillars. The Wellington Health & Drug Strategy also has an Advisory Committee that is formed from people with lived experience who provide fantastic information and perspectives to help inform the work that they do.
The WGDS's mission is to take action to prevent and respond to local substance use issues. They do so through different pathways: education through research and knowledge exchange, advocacy, and through program design.
Jean then spoke of the 17% increase in fatalities from drug poisonings from 2022-2023 in Guelph. She emphasized that these numbers are under reported and likely double. So, the 27 reported fatalities are likely closer to 60.
She then explained what is leading to more instances of drug poisonings and fatalities across the country, "so opioids in the unregulated, unregulated drug supply. Many of us if not most of us in this room have used regulated opioids, right. They are very effective for pain management for epidural Dental, dental surgery, cancer pain, right? We know that they are effective because they flood the amygdala with dopamine. They take away sensations of pain, and I want to be really clear here both physical and emotional pain, right? And they suppress a stress response. Right. They are very, very effective medications.
"But when they're bought off of the unregulated market, so on the street, they contain a really wide range of other substances, including high strength opioids like fentanyl and car fentanyl. And that can lead to drug poisoning very quickly. And we also know that it's not necessarily just opioids. It's also stimulants and other substances that can be purchased on the street as well."
Jean then used an example of a cookie to explain the unpredictability of toxicity in the illegal drug supply, "...I think that a really helpful way to sort of explain this is thinking through baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies, you have a batch of your chocolate chip cookies, you put all the chocolate chips into the batter, and then you [make] all your chocolate chip cookies, right and you don't necessarily know how many chocolate chips are in each one and the same can be said for high strength opioids... It can be a very small amount in one cookie...and then quite a bit in another right. So it's really unpredictable. It's really inconsistent, and again, can lead to drug poisonings in a very rapid amount of time."
She then explained that the Toronto Drug Checking Service, based out of St. Luke's Hospital in Toronto, took 161 samples from illegal substances and found that 59% of fentanyl samples contained a benzodiazepine related drug. Things like Valium and Lorazepam. Those are medications that aren't responsive to Naloxone. 27% contained a vet tranquilizer. Such as xylazine, which is a really high strength veterinary tranquilizer. 16% were known to be associated with an overdose.
Jean also emphasized how effective Naloxone is in reducing drug poisoning fatalities. She encouraged everyone to take training on it and to purchase a Naloxone kit at their local drug store.
She finished her presentation with a discussion of the Pathways to Remembering Memorial that WGDS is hoping to complete by 2025. The memorial is being built to honour and respect the lives of all those who have been lost to drug poisoning. It is to help remind everyone that they were brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers. For individuals and families who lost loved ones to drug poisoning, it is a space to grieve and to honour their loved ones.
WGDS is hoping to raise $50,000 for the project. They are just over 1/3 of the way there. If you would like to donate, please visit: https://wgdrugstrategy.ca/.
After her presentation, members from the club asked Jean questions about drug poisoning and the work that WGDS does.
Dianne Dance thanked Jean for her presentation and presented her with our speaker certificate which confirms our vaccination of 100 children, against polio, in Jean's name.
As there was nothing more for the good of Rotary, the meeting was adjourned by Marva Wisdom.
Notes taken by, Otter.ai, edited and formatted by Aidan Harris.
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