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Photo by Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia

This is just one of at least eight police patrols spotted over six hours on Thursday around the health facility on 4th Street S.W. between 12th and 13th avenues.

If drug dealers are hanging around to sell to Safeworks’ clients, they do a good job of remaining invisible. A steady stream of addicts come and go. They go in through the filthy door, and out through another one. Some mill about before or after but security guards, who work for Alberta Health Services, ask those loitering to move along.

“I think the increased police presence has spooked the dealers,” says Adrian, 27, a seven-year addict who uses Safeworks twice a day to shoot up what he calls heroin but admits is actually fentanyl.

“Things have really been cleaned up out here since early December,” adds Adrian. “I don’t have a problem with that because if bad stuff continues to happen around here there will be pressure to close Safeworks down, and then more people will die.”

He’s right about that. In the 15 months that Safeworks has been operating, the agency says 800 overdoses were reversed out of its more than 48,000 visits since it first opened its doors in October 2017.

He’s also right about a growing chorus of upset business owners and residents who either want Safeworks relocated or for a greater and sustained police presence around the site to help keep the dealers away and the users inside.

On Tuesday, the Calgary Police Service released a much-anticipated report that shows that crime around the consumption site has spiked since Safeworks started providing a safe place for addicts to ingest their street drugs.