Services
Opioid agonist treatment
Daily witnessed doses and take-home doses, dispensed under your prescriber’s direction — without the counter making it harder than it already is.
What this is
Opioid agonist treatment is a prescribed, evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder. Which medication you are on, at what dose, and how often you are seen is a decision between you and your prescriber.
A pharmacy’s part is narrow and it is entirely logistical: the dose is ready when you arrive, the paperwork is right, take-home doses are dispensed correctly, and nobody makes the transaction more difficult than it needs to be.
This page names no medication on purpose. Canadian law restricts advertising these, and which one you are on is nobody’s business but yours and your prescriber’s.
What we intend to do
- Daily witnessed doses, dispensed without a queue built around them
- Take-home doses exactly as your prescriber has authorised them
- A private area, so a daily dose is not a public event
- Coordination with your prescriber when something needs changing
- Coverage sorted out, so a lapse never interrupts treatment
- Naloxone available at the same counter, free, no questions
- Interaction checking against everything else you take
- Consistency — the same process, on a Sunday, at the end of a bad week
How you will be treated here
Matter-of-factly. Opioid agonist treatment is a prescription like any other, and it will be handled like one. You will not be watched more closely than anyone else in the shop, spoken to more slowly, or asked how long you have been clean.
If you miss doses, the clinical process for restarting exists and is routine. Nobody here will treat it as a moral event. If you use on top, telling us is a clinical disclosure that keeps you safe, not a confession — it changes what we watch for and what we tell your prescriber.
What we will not put on a website
Photographs of people at their worst, before-and-after narratives, recovery slogans, or language about hitting bottom. Those exist for an audience that is not you.
This page is deliberately plain because the useful information is plain: where to come, what happens, and what will not happen.
Alcohol
Medication for alcohol use disorder is prescribed too, and it is dispensed here the same way — same privacy, same absence of commentary. It is under-prescribed nationally, largely because people do not know it exists, so it is worth asking a prescriber about.
Common questions
Can a pharmacist here start me on treatment?
No. This needs a prescriber. If you do not have one, the clinic upstairs will see people without a referral once open, and there are services in this neighbourhood that can start treatment today — ask and we will point you to them.
Will I be seen taking my dose?
A witnessed dose has to be witnessed by a pharmacist — that is what the word means. It does not have to be witnessed by everyone else in the shop, and the layout here is meant to make that distinction real.
What if I’m going to be away?
Tell us in advance and we will work with your prescriber on it. Travel and take-home authorisation are governed by rules we do not set, but arranging it is ordinary and it is much easier a week ahead than the day before.
What if I miss a day?
Come in anyway. There is a defined clinical process for restarting after missed doses, and it exists precisely because missing days is common. What is unsafe is guessing at your own dose.
Can I get naloxone here?
Yes — free, no prescription, and no explanation required. See naloxone kits.
Whether or not you are in treatment, carrying naloxone is worth doing. Free, no prescription, and nobody will ask why you want one.
Naloxone kits →