“It looks like a hair salon, with mirrors around the room,” explained Canadian Sen. Larry Campbell. There’s a narrow counter, bins of supplies, a chair at each station and professionals to assist. But there is no styling going on in the supervised injection facility Campbell opened in 2003 as the mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s where 500 to 600 drug addicts come each day to inject heroin, Fentanyl or other opioids they have scored on their own.

Campbell, a colorful and persuasive speaker who serves on the board of the Drug Policy Alliance, came to California to support a proposal from an Assembly member to legalize supervised injection facilities here. Law enforcement in California is opposed, convinced it will only enable more addiction. Campbell, a self-described hard-ass, disagrees. He worked the streets of Vancouver as a narcotics officer before becoming coroner. He ran for mayor (and won in a landslide) on a platform of opening a safe injection facility — so far the only one in North America.

Today, Toronto and Montreal are moving toward opening their own supervised injection sites as the opioid addiction epidemic sweeps that nation — just as it has swept the U.S. After decades of the war on drugs, drug overdose is now the leading cause of unintentional death in America. Consequently, the conversation around illegal drugs has changed: Addicts, once scorned as low-lifes and criminals, now increasingly are seen in a new light as patients, family members and neighbors battling the disease and scourge of addiction. What was once framed as moral failings are becoming viewed as health concerns.

Drug overdose deaths are on the rise in San Francisco, too. Should San Francisco open its own facility?

Campbell approached Vancouver’s drug problems like a cop: Contain, control and sweep the addicted from public view. Aim to curb emergency room costs by providing clean paraphernalia and supervised injection. Most important for a man who stared daily at the destruction drugs wrought: Stop deaths. In 13 years, the facility, called Insite, has seen overdoses but no deaths. “I want to keep people alive and lower the mayhem on the street,” he said.

For San Franciscans, accustomed to stepping over used needles, watching addicts shooting up in public and trying to avoid homeless drug users passed out on sidewalks, “contain and control” sounds like wishful thinking.

Campbell himself was astounded at the number of people camping on the streets that he observed walking up Market Street in the early evening last week. “It was clear there was an edge I didn’t feel in Vancouver,” he said. Vancouver, a coastal city with a liberal perspective and a population and demographics similar to San Francisco, has an estimated 15,000 addicts. Some 12,000 are registered with the injection facility.

So far, Insite policies have staunched the spread of hepatitis and HIV. Emergency room costs have diminished. Needle litter on the streets is reduced by half. Control was restored by flooding the area with police. Prostitution and theft associated with drug use are contained to a five-block area. Campbell says Insite, which offers detox and drug rehab services 18 hours a day, needs to expand. “It should have 15 blocks,” he said.

Giving over 15 blocks of prime real estate to druggies might sound crazed, until you realize in San Francisco we already have given over at least that much or more to drug-related activities. Less clear is the city’s liability if it enables people to continue their illegal and self-destructive behavior. Or why property crime would go down when addicts are hustling for cash to buy drugs.

Vancouver concluded law enforcement wouldn’t stop addiction. That community chose to help itself by dealing with addicts where they are. For Campbell, “Ignoring these people lessens all of society.”

For San Francisco, supervised injection is worth a try.

Lois Kazakoff is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lkazakoff@sfchronicle.com