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In these health facilities, people consume, usually by injection, pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of nurses and trained staff who are able to provide sterile needles and respond to overdoses when they occur. The scientific evidence derived from the evaluation of these facilities is both comprehensive and clear: they save lives. Yet despite the mountains of evidence that’s been compiled about their effectiveness, this health intervention continues to be controversial for those who don’t know, or willingly choose to ignore, the science.

Not a single death has been reported in a supervised consumption site. Thomas Kerr and M-J Milloy

As scientists who worked on the evaluation of Insite — North America’s first legal supervised injection facility, which is located in Vancouver — and have studied the scientific literature derived from similar facilities around the world, it is disheartening to see the science ignored by politicians who are eager to score partisan points and prevent safe consumption sites from opening in communities that desperately need them.

Here’s what the science tells us: not a single death has been reported in a supervised consumption site. Reviews of over 75 studies undertaken between 2014 and 2017 concluded that such places promote safer injection conditions, reduce overdoses and increase access to health services. Supervised injection sites were associated with less outdoor drug use, and they did not appear to increase crime or substance abuse. In fact, our study of conditions around Insite showed that there were fewer instances of public drug use, publicly discarded syringes and other injection-related litter in the area after the facility opened. Using crime statistics from the Vancouver Police Department, we also demonstrated that the opening of Insite did not result in increases in drug-related crimes.