Non-Injectable Forms of Supervised Drug Consumption: A Scoping Review

Supervised consumption services (SCS) aim to improve the health of people who use drugs (PWUD) by providing a safe and sterile environment for substance use, harm reduction supplies and education, and emergency medical care. SCS also provide an opportunity to connect PWUD with other health and social supports. Until very recently, SCS in Canada have only allowed participants to consume drugs through injection, and excluded those who consume drugs intranasally, orally, or via inhalation. However, including those who consume drugs through other routes in SCS provides a potentially important opportunity to engage a harder to reach subset of the PWUD population in care. 

In order to address this current gap and inform policy regarding SCS, we are conducting a large and comprehensive review of the academic and grey literature to describe the information available on supervised non-injection routes of drug consumption. Specifically, we aim to:

1) Describe SCS models that incorporate non-injection routes of administration

2) Describe the impacts of incorporating these routes within SCS, and

3) Characterize the existing literature outlining the need for allowing non-injection routes of consumption within SCS

Resources

Study Lead: Elaine Hyshka (principal investigator) and Kelsey Speed (research coordinator)

Funding Support: Access to Medically Supervised Injection Services Edmonton (AMSISE)

Status: Complete