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A new Mainstreet/Postmedia poll says 44 per cent of Edmontonians surveyed support the establishment of a safe injection site for IV drug users in this city.

Another 30 per cent opposed the idea, while 26 per cent were undecided.

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That’s not overwhelming public support. But it suggests an intriguing degree of public receptiveness. And this is the right time for us to be having that discussion.

Historically, heroin hasn’t been a problem drug in Edmonton. But that’s changing. In 2013, there were 19 visits to emergency rooms in the Edmonton health zone because of heroin overdoses. Last year, there were 118. In the first two months of 2016, there were about as many heroin overdoses as there were in all of 2013.

Intravenous drugs users in Edmonton are also injecting other drugs, everything from morphine to cocaine to methamphetamine to fentanyl.

Supervised injection sites aren’t a new idea.

Vancouver, which has a more serious heroin problem, has been running its InSite clinic for more than a decade. Other countries, including Spain, Australia, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands, have been running “consumption rooms” for decades. Switzerland opened its first state-sanctioned safe injection room in 1988. Germany followed in 1994.