BR Supervised Consumption – CP

Source: The Canadian Press – Broadcast wire
Aug 4, 2017 

Victoria has received permission to open its first government-sanctioned supervised consumption site, where people will be able to inject illicit drugs in the presence of medical staff.

The move is made possible under a Health Canada exemption from Canada’s drug laws granted to the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

The authority says the site, which will be named the Pandora Community Health and Wellness Centre, will help stem the surge in B-C’s overdose deaths.

Island Health says Victoria is home to the third-highest rate of overdose deaths.

The facility will provide drug users with access to counselling, treatment options and the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

It will also replace a temporary overdose prevention that opened nearby last December.

Judy Darcy, B-C’s new minister of mental health and addictions, says Victoria’s supervised consumption site is part of a broader strategy of offering people a safe place to use drugs.

The provincial coroners’ service says about 17-hundred people have fatally overdosed in B-C since the start of 2016.

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(The Canadian Press)

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