Canada - Health minister approves 3 supervised drug consumption sites in Montreal

[S.J.B.]

Health minister approves 3 supervised drug consumption sites in Montreal
Peter Zimonjic
CBC
February 6th, 2017

Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has approved three new supervised injection sites in Montreal.

The move is being taken to help address the public health crisis of opioid overdoses and deaths across the country.

According to a statement released by Philpott's office, the Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre applied for the exemption under the law for the sites, and will be responsible for them — although the sites will be operated by three Montreal community organizations at ground level.

Two of the centres will be located in the downtown borough of Ville-Marie. The first will be operated by CACTUS Montreal, while the other will be run by Spectre de rue. The third location in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, in the city's east end, will be operated by Dopamine.

"Our approach must be comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate and evidence-based," the statement says.

Read the full story here.

Read the press release from the federal government here.

These approvals have been a long time coming! I think we are going to see these in every major city in Canada relatively soon.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

meanwhile in the US you have governers of worst hit states:

1) making any physician or nurse that tries to assist an overdose victim by giving them narcan liable for the persons death or injury if they don't survive
2) making naloxone stay prescription only, trying to prevent it from being sold
3) trying to prevent to opening of additional rehab/detox facilities and trying to limit the numbers they can treat.

see governer lepage on opioids of maine.

All in the name of "not providing safety nets" for addicts so that they will make the correct choice to stop using since they have no safety net. Hows that been working out for the last 20-50 years and recently?

 

[ro4eva]

As someone who fundamentally values the concept of harm reduction and openly acknowledges that a percentage of citizens shall always be resorting to the consumption of politically incorrect substances, I find this news to be earth-shattering in its importance towards the progression of public sentiment apropos illicit drug use.

Truth be told, I was deeply concerned that this day would never arrive, but I'm glad my fears were for naught.

I pray that the Liberals don't break their promise to introduce a bill this spring to legalize the recreational consumption of weed throughout the nation's provinces and territories.

Believe it or not, I'm not a fan of Cannabis - conservatives seem to think I'm lying because I'm staunchly pro-legalization.

Either way, legalizing the possession of a plant which should never have been targeted the way it has been is paramount if we are to convince other western nations (and hopefully the rest of the world soon afterwards) to slowly-but-surely do away bit-by-bit with this preposterous war on a random selection of psychotropic substances deemed evil by crooked, bigoted, superstitious men and women in positions of authority.

But back to the original topic: I imagine that news of this approval by the health minister has undoubtedly caused countless conservative knuckleheads to explode at the ignorant and arrogant thought that this is all a conspiracy to provide addicts with safespaces to shoot up because we approve of their drug(s) of choice. Nonsense, but unfortunately it appears to me that right-wingers typically are unable to sympathize with issues which they've never personally been affected by, so there's that.

Nevertheless, I'm keepin' my libtard fingers crossed for the entirety of this one.

Thanks to the OP for linking this story - made my day

Edit: I'm truly saddened after reading the article's comments section. Still lots and lots of hoodwinked twats out there who think their intuition regarding a topic which is tacitly-foreign to their senses is spot-on. Good grief, how fundamentally wrong they are in their delusions.