Make supervised drug-use sites safe for all

It shouldn’t take a tragedy to make authorities address the spillover effects

It has been 20 years now since North America’s first supervised drug-use site opened in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The idea, highly disputed at the time, was to reduce the toll of disease and death from drug taking. Canada now has dozens of sites in cities across the country. Visitors are given clean needles and other supplies so that they can use their drugs in relative safety, with trained staff on hand to revive them if they suffer overdoses, and to connect them with addiction treatment or help with finding places to live if they want it. Health authorities consider supervised sites a vital part of the response to the national overdose crisis, which is still claiming more than 20 lives a day.

But those who live or work near the sites often see serious side effects. Needles on the sidewalk. Open drug use. Vandalism. Break-ins.

One of the most dramatic incidents to date happened this summer in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood, in the city’s east end. Karolina Huebner-Makurat, a well-liked local woman, was killed by a stray bullet from an apparent shootout near a supervised site. Though authorities initially did not say whether there was a connection to the site, the death of Ms. Huebner-Makurat, a mother of two, horrified the community and confirmed many neighbours in their conviction that it was a source of trouble.

Now another shocking bit of news has added to their suspicions. Police charged a young woman who worked at the site with obstructing justice and being an accessory after the fact. The government of Premier Doug Ford promptly announced a “critical incident review” of supervised sites and treatment services.

Those who work with drug users fear a backlash is brewing. They are not wrong. In Vancouver, some residents of Yaletown complain about fights, trash and drug paraphernalia outside the local supervised site. The city has decided not to renew its lease. In Edmonton, businesses and property owners in the Ritchie neighbourhood are asking the city to reverse the approval of a new site, arguing it will bring more drug trafficking and other crime.

The federal Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre, has seized on the growing anger. In an infamous video, he poses in front of an encampment in Vancouver and asks: “Do you ever feel that everything’s broken in Canada?” As crude and as opportunistic as that take was, he was tapping into something real.

The worries of those like the residents of Yaletown and Leslieville are genuine and legitimate. They can’t be dismissed as mere NIMBYism or hysteria. Most residents aren’t trying to vilify drug users or deprive them of help. At a community meeting after the Leslieville shooting, many made it clear they were not against the site. They support what it is doing.

They just want better safeguards against the spillover.

That is hardly an extravagant request, much less a sign of prejudice or malice. All Canadians deserve to feel safe and comfortable in their own neighbourhoods. They are losing patience with the failure of their governments to provide them with that most basic of things: security.

They are fed up with courts that put dangerous offenders who pose an obvious threat back on the street again and again. One of the men accused in the Leslieville shooting was out on bail and forbidden from having weapons.

They are annoyed at city leaders for letting tent cities stand month after month in some of their most cherished parks. They are appalled that an innocent person can be shot down in her tracks while simply walking down a busy city street.

Many do indeed feel that something is broken. More worrying, they feel that no one in charge is doing anything to fix it.

To address those feelings, authorities have to do a whole variety of things, from improving security on public transit to restoring faith in the justice system. One of those things is making supervised druguse sites safe not just for those who use them but for those who live around them. As Toronto’s new mayor Olivia Chow put it: “We need a place where it’s safe inside, but safe outside. The residents deserve no less.”

That may mean more security guards and litter patrols around the sites. It may mean shutting those that are poorly run and moving those that are too close to schools or daycares. Above all, it means taking the concerns of surrounding residents seriously.

Neighbours in Leslieville had complained for many months about issues around the site. It shouldn’t take a tragedy for someone to start listening.