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“I believe in supporting people, getting them help,” he said on the campaign trail in April. “I ask anyone out there: if your son, daughter or loved one ever had an addiction, would you want them to go in a little area and do more drugs?”

Indeed, that’s exactly what a lot of terrified parents want: a “little area” in a community health centre under a nurse’s care, rather than a “little area” between the garbage and recycling bins out back of a convenience store.

Not Ford, though. “I’m dead against that,” he said. His government installed a moratorium on new safe-injection sites.

Health Minister Christine Elliott promises to consult experts and review all the evidence before deciding what comes next. Her opponents say the evidence is overwhelmingly in these facilities’ favour. And it’s true: there’s vastly more published research in favour of safe-injection sites than against. But a new study by researchers at the University of South Wales, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, throws a bit of cold water into the mix.

The meta-analysis — i.e., a study of other studies — found safe-injection sites correlated with a “significant” drop in drug crime in the area of the facilities; but also with “a significant unfavourable result in relation to problematic heroin use or injection.” The researchers found safe-injection sites provided no significant effect at all on sharing syringes or, crucially, on overdose deaths.