B.C. creating more safe places for drug users

VANCOUVER — British Columbia is opening new locations where people can inject illicit drugs while monitored by trained staff — but the province says it isn’t skirting the law on supervised-injection sites.

The province announced Thursday that its opioid overdose crisis has spurred it to establish three overdose-prevention sites in Vancouver, with more planned in Surrey and Victoria.

Teams of staff will provide people who use illegal drugs with a safe space to be monitored and, if needed, be administered with naloxone, which reverses the effects of opioid overdoses.

“People are dying. We can stop people dying. We’re going to take that action,” provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said at a news conference.

Kendall said it wasn’t a “supervised-injection site under another name,” but an emergency measure to connect people who can deliver naloxone with the places where people are injecting.

He said supervised-injection sites are different because they are specifically designed for people to inject drugs under medical supervision, to receive training on safe injection and to be linked with health care and addiction services, he said.

The new overdose-prevention sites are being established in existing locations where people receive addiction supports, including a needleexchange depot in the Downtown Eastside. Medical staff, housing staff and volunteers will be available to monitor injections.

Supervised-injection sites, like Vancouver’s Insite, require an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act from the federal government.

Kendall said the province sought legal advice and was confident it did not require an exemption to establish the new overdose-prevention sites.

Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has said her staff is reviewing legislation and will amend or remove any barriers to establishing new sites.

There have been more than 600 illicit drug overdose deaths in B.C. this year. Kendall said he became cautiously optimistic in the summer that overdoses were going down, but the number rose in October and is expected to continue rising when November data is released next week.

The province has spent about $43 million responding to the crisis this year, Kendall said.