London should consider dedicated drug needle hotline, residents says

A London, Ont., man wants the city to consider creating a dedicated hotline people can use to report discarded needles, suspected of being used by drug addicts.

Ryan Izzard found several needles on Wharncliffe Road S. while out for a walk Tuesday.

He called the police, local health unit, city hall, EMS and the property management company responsible for the property before posting a photo of the mess on the city's Facebook page.

While the property management company said it would do something about the problem, it was that photo that eventually led to the city picking up the needles.

Izzard praised how quickly London staff worked to clean up the problem once they became aware of it.

"They were good about it. I let them know they did a good job," Izzard said.

The city later gave Izzard two other phone numbers he could have called to report the needles, but they were only active during business hours. A third number, that's monitored after hours, was finally given to him.

People wanting to report discarded needles can call any of the following numbers:

• London Public Service at 519-661-4570
• London CAReS at 519-667-2273
• After hours at 519-661-4965

"It took an hour to get to the point I was confident somebody even knew about it. Would the average person spend an hour to call up to three numbers to report something like this?" Izzard said. "A dedicated line would be great. But that in itself may not be necessary.

"I didn't want to absolutely talk to somebody. I just wanted to leave message where I would feel confident it would get to the appropriate people in a reasonable amount of time.

"I was quite tempted to just give up but I'm a parent and it was in my neighbourhood and obviously I couldn't do that."

• London hands out 2.5M needles to addicts every year

More than 2.5 million needles are handed out to drug users each year in London, Ont., making the city second to only Vancouver when it comes to publicly funded needle use in Canada.

Prolific drug use in the region prompted health officials to consider introducing a safe injection program aimed at preventing overdoses and the spread of diseases.