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Last week, Edmonton city hall voted 10-1 in favour of building not just one “safe consumption” sites for drugs, but four of them — all within walking distance of one another in one of the city’s lowest-income urban districts.

The decision was made despite the fact that more than 80 per cent of Edmonton’s fentanyl-related overdoses are occurring in the suburbs — well beyond the reach of the new facilities. The move also ignores fervent pleas from locals, who claim that approving four drug consumption sites will be a death sentence for their already chaotic and drug-ridden neighbourhood.

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And honestly, it’s hard to see how the locals are wrong. While the strategy of harm reduction can indeed save the lives of addicts in the short term, it can destroy communities if used in isolation.

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These unhappy results can be seen a province away. Vancouver is into its second decade of dealing with an injected-drug crisis. The city has been concentrating more and more services in its Downtown Eastside. The result? Everything seems to be getting worse.