The opposition to opening a safe drug-consumption site in any Cambridge downtown core is widespread, fierce and, perhaps, permanent.

You can hear it coming from Cambridge Mayor Kathryn McGarry, who vows city council will never let it happen. You can see it in the 2,300-plus signatures from impassioned residents on a petition demanding that council say no to one of these clinics anywhere in the city and not just in its three cores.

And underpinning this resistance is the unshakable conviction that opening the door to a supervised consumption site would close the doors on struggling businesses while squeezing life and hope out of vital neighbourhoods. Some opponents claim these sites aren't even beneficial to drug users.

But what if the assumptions on which this entrenched opposition is based were wrong? What if it was possible to save the downtowns and the lives of vulnerable people with the help of one of these clinics?

We believe the answers to these questions can be found in downtown Kitchener, where one of these sites has operated at 150 Duke St. since mid-October 2019. The hard evidence overwhelmingly indicates this clinic is saving lives while posing no threat to Kitchener's downtown.

Kitchener's consumption and treatment services site allows people to inject drugs that would otherwise be considered illegal, and to do this under a nurse's supervision. It's part of a necessary, nationwide response to the epidemic of opioid abuse that claimed 12,800 lives in Canada between January 2016 and March 2019.

During its first three full months of operation, Kitchener's consumption and treatment services site handled 2,380 visitors.

But if that number seems large, downtown Kitchener hasn't blinked.

There has been no rise in crime in the neighbourhood around the site, according to Waterloo Regional Police Chief Bryan Larkin. In fact, since the site opened, police have responded to fewer — yes fewer — calls related to overdoses, disturbances and suspicious people in the surrounding area. "We're seeing positive steps," the chief said.

Workers at the clinic report there were no calls for ambulances in that initial three-month period. Nor were there any calls to 911 for police related to crime or security issues. Staff members have also been conducting regular sweeps around the site for needles and recovered 80 so far.

The important takeaway is that Kitchener's downtown has become more safe, peaceful and law-abiding since this site opened, not less. Cambridge's core areas may be smaller than Kitchener's. We can't see why the outcome would be any different for them.

There is one more number for people in Cambridge to ponder. In its first three months, Kitchener's consumption site successfully treated 40 overdoses. No one died at the site — in a region where opioid overdoses killed 63 people last year. Just this week, a single Toronto consumption site in a single day reversed 16 potentially fatal overdoses that involved tainted drugs.

As for the Cambridge petitioners who say they support treating drug users rather than helping them inject, nurses and a social worker at the Duke Street site are offering support, counselling and referrals for other services.

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These are the facts and they should matter. A bylaw banning these sites in any Cambridge core soon expires. What then? After downtown Kitchener, Galt's core has the highest level of overdose emergency calls in the region.

For the sake of those suffering from drug abuse and in need of help, we hope the approximately 127,000 Cambridge residents who didn't sign the petition will at least consider supporting a local clinic.