Victoria’s first supervised drug consumption site will take a year to open

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Victoria’s first supervised drug consumption site will take a year to open

7 August 2017

By Sarah Petrescu

The Canadian federal government has approved the first supervised consumption site in Victoria for illicit drug users, but it will be at least a year before it opens.

“This is going to save lives and take us beyond what our overdose prevention sites are doing,” said Dr. Richard Stanwick, chief medical officer for Island Health. “Now they won’t be a stop-gap measure, they are a bridge.”

An overdose prevention site is operating there under emergency orders as a measure to cope with the overdose crisis. That site is run from a shipping container, with two booths for injection, harm-reduction supplies, a paramedic and outreach workers on-hand.

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