EDMONTON—An Alberta researcher is taking Premier Jason Kenney to task for citing an article featuring her work as proof that supervised injection sites are hurting Alberta communities.

Em Pijl said she knew the biggest risk with her research into the unintended consequences of putting a supervised consumption site in Lethbridge, Alta., was that people might try and point to the findings as reason to pull funding for the facility.

She’s unimpressed the Alberta government now seems to be doing just that.

On Thursday, the University of Lethbridge professor, who released her study this month, criticized Kenney for his “inflammatory” tweet about it the day before.

Kenney called supervised consumption locations “NDP drug sites” and used an article about her study to say “more data confirms” the sites “have hit local communities with an increase in crime and anti-social behaviour.”

“I think he’s trying to make people feel really angry and upset — all this virtue-signalling about how bad the NDP is, and these programs, and those people,” Pijl told the Star.

“I don’t think it’s constructive in any way.”

Earlier this week, Kenney was asked by reporters about a review that his government had requested after striking a panel to tour the province and investigate the consequences of the sites. He said it’s possible some of the sites — there are seven in Alberta — could be closed or relocated.

Kenney said he’d seen a preliminary report from the panel and that, “It underscores the concerns that we have had about the negative impact on people and on communities as a result of at least some of the drug-injection sites.

“They’re now more than injections. ... They’re just illegal drug sites.”

Supervised consumption sites are locations where people with addictions can consume opioids and other substances in a controlled environment, close to help if they overdose and to a network that can support them.

Research into the benefits of supervised consumption sites has shown they save lives and play a significant role in harm reduction.

Pijl’s study was narrow in that it focused on the perceptions of those who are affected by the site in Lethbridge, a small southern city and home to North America’s busiest site, clocking around 663 visits per day.

Her study used a questionnaire to measure how people in the area around the site perceive anti-social behaviour and social disorder. It was sent out to people in several different zones of the city and sought to measure their perceptions of social disorder. Focus groups were held and five surveys were sent out, garnering hundreds of responses.

The study noted that it had requested crime and call-out data from the Lethbridge Police Service but that after three requests, the service “failed to provide any usable data.”

She stressed that her study should be placed alongside other research focused on other sites in different cities, such as Vancouver and Sydney, Australia.

It should also be contextualized with research into the accompanying benefits and life-saving measures.

If Kenney were to use her study to help form public policy, “I would have to school him on the purpose of the report,” Pijl said.

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“I was trying to shed light on the unintended consequences and that is totally unrelated to the benefits of supervised consumption.”

What the study mainly shows is that Alberta is facing a drug crisis and that there needs to be mitigation programs, compassion for both drug users and business people, detox measures, housing initiatives and rehabilitation, Pijl said.

She also said that the negative impacts of the site in Lethbridge shouldn’t be discounted. People there raise real concerns about discarded needles, social disorder and effects on business.

“We can’t say that everything is due to the SCS,” she said, adding that some social ills being driven up could be due to the drug crisis accelerating and poverty becoming worse across the spectrum.

“That said, there are a couple of points where things did markedly change in this (area) and that was just related to some specific behaviours … throwing needles, discarding needles inappropriately, debris and things like that.”

Pijl noted that many of these issues were observable in the downtown part of Lethbridge since 2016, it’s just that in 2018, the placement of the site in a separate area brought some of that with it.

She cautioned that pulling funding for the site won’t make those things go away. Taking out the service will cause overdose deaths, she said.

“(The study) does not speak to the merits of supervised consumption,” Pijl said. “I think people need to stop seeing drug use as a moral failing.”

The UCP government has set aside $140 million to bolster mental health and addiction services and pledged to open 4,000 treatment spaces.

Christine Myatt, a spokesperson for the premier’s office, said in an emailed statement that, “We do not oppose harm reduction as part of a continuum of care.”

“We believe that not nearly enough emphasis has been placed on treatment and recovery and we plan to change that,” she said.

She added that while they have “serious concerns” with the impact of the sites on some areas, the review is ongoing and that funding for the sites will remain until the government is done looking over the results.

With files from The Canadian Press.

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