More than a year-and-a-half after it opened, a site at a Kingston, Ont., prison where inmates can consume smuggled drugs under medical supervision has only had one user.
The overdose prevention service (OPS) at the Collins Bay Institution was set up as a place where prisoners could inject, snort or swallow substances, all with a nurse on standby.
It opened on Nov. 28, 2023, becoming the first of its kind in Ontario and only the third in Canada. (Two more OPS sites have opened since).
Five people who applied have been approved to use the site so far, but just one has actually done so, and that inmate has only used it a handful of times, beginning in April, CBC has learned.
“There’s always going to be a bit of a level of distrust, especially with a novel program such as this and a fundamental change to how we are supporting somebody living with addictions,” said Matthew Secord, manager of health and rehabilitation at Collins Bay.
Secord described the first visit as “a surreal moment,” adding it takes “quite a bit of bravery and courage” to try something new — especially inside a prison.
As of March 31, 2025, the cost of running the site — which includes salaries plus operational and maintenance costs — has come to $517,000, according to a spokesperson with Correctional Service Canada (CSC).
A man who spent more than a year incarcerated at Collins Bay’s minimum security section said he’s not surprised the site has seen so little use because it means exposing yourself, and potentially your supplier.
CBC has agreed not to identify the inmate, who served his time before the consumption site opened, because he believes speaking out could cause problems with his employment.
“If you’re a drug dealer in prison, you’re not going to sell drugs to a guy who’s going to go to the guards because … they’re gonna know who you are, and they’re gonna pay attention to you,” the man explained.
That can result in cell searches or being labelled a gang member, he said, describing some correctional officers as “pure haters” who want to punish inmates beyond their sentences.
The goal for nearly everyone behind bars is to get out, the former prisoner said, so an inmate would be foolish to do anything that could risk delaying their chance at parole — especially open drug use.
An “amnesty zone” exists around the consumption site, meaning approved inmates are able to head to the prison’s health-care wing and if drugs are found on them, they can’t be charged, explained Secord, the head of health services.
Once a prisoner arrives, they’re provided with clean supplies and given 10 minutes to consume their substance. They’re then required to stay for 30 minutes under observation in case of any negative effects.
The sites are an initiative supported by both harm reduction advocates and the union representing correctional officers, which sees it as a way to limit the number of needles inside cells and ensure medical staff, not its members, are the ones responding to overdoses.
CSC said visits to a consumption site, like all other medical information, are confidential and will only be shared in limited circumstances such as a life-threatening situation.
“Participants … will not be disciplined for using the service, which includes questions about potential impacts on an offender’s conditional release, but they may face disciplinary measures if caught with illicit drugs outside of it,” wrote spokesperson Mike Shrider in an email.
Even with that assurance, the worry persists among prisoners, according to Lynne Leonard, who recently retired as a professor with the University of Ottawa’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health.
Between 2019 and March 2025, she visited four of the five OPS sites across the country — including Collins Bay — spending hours at each speaking confidentially with everyone from the warden to inmates, before writing up recommendations as part of an independent evaluation.
Leonard said one of the most stubborn obstacles she encountered was the fear among inmates that visiting an OPS would be reported to the parole board. While that was a requirement in the past, it isn’t any longer, the evaluator said, adding she called on CSC to make that distinction clear to inmates in both her 2020 and 2025 reports.
Another common complaint is the operating hours for the sites. While they’re open during the day, Leonard said prisoners don’t want to be under the influence of narcotics during programming, work or meetings with parole officers. Instead, they’d prefer to take drugs during their free time after supper.
The evaluator said she’s been told by CSC staff that the hours come down to finances and staffing, explaining it can be hard enough to find nurses to work at a prison, let alone someone willing to work until 10 p.m.
There’s also been a change in the inmates’ drug of choice. While fentanyl was popular when OPS sites were first opening up, that’s no longer the case.
“It’s now shifted to crystal meth … resulting in the fact that you can get fentanyl for a candy bar now because nobody wants it, because it’s associated with overdoses,” Leonard said.
Meth is typically smoked, a drug-consumption method that isn’t allowed at OPS locations. The drug can also come with “frightening psychotic episodes,” she explained.
Still, the most obvious and enduring barrier is the pressure that comes from walking through a prison to visit one of the sites.
Leonard said beyond concerns about parole or a crackdown by correctional officers, inmates who use an OPS face a more immediate risk — being “muscled” by others eager for their drugs and willing to use violence to get them.
“It’s not confidential by any means, and that’s part of the issue,” she said of visiting the site. “Confidentiality is a huge, huge issue.”
Twenty-three overdoses or suspected overdoses were reported at Collins Bay between 2022 and 2023, according to CSC.
Since the OPS opened, that number had dropped to zero, Secord said, explaining the trend toward crystal meth has likely been a major factor.
Like Leonard, he identified operating hours, the attention a visit to the site draws, and the change in the drug of choice as barriers to its use.
If there’s a recommendation to allow smoking substances including meth at the OPS, that option could be discussed in the future, he added.
Meanwhile, Secord said staff at Collins Bay will continue to work with its inmate committee and health liaisons to highlight what the site has to offer.
Leonard said everyone wants the OPS model to work, but some problems will be easier to solve than others. During her evaluations, she’s heard suggestions that the sites should move out of the health services section of prisons, or that they should be placed on a range of cells specifically for inmates who are using substances.
The former inmate said the focus should be on rehab, not drug use, and argued CSC will always have a hard time convincing prisoners that using an OPS won’t hurt their hopes of release.
“I think inmates have to be assured that it’s genuine for their own health, their own life,” he explained. “You have to entice them and to make them feel that this is not gonna harm me.”
