'People will die' 

NDP slams government supervised consumption site review

Alberta’s new United Conservative government is reviewing supervised drug consumption sites across the province, and won’t fund any new ones until that report is complete.

Jason Luan, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, told reporters Monday on his way into the house he hopes to have a report in the coming weeks.

“We need to balance the need for those people who need the access to the supervised consumption sites … (with) the needs of the community,” Luan said.

Heather Sweet, NDP mental health and addictions critic, said the UCP’s move to freeze funding for new sites effectively means the government is rejecting the harm-reduction model.

“This is now going to become an issue where people struggling with addictions in urban centres are going to get resources that people in rural Alberta will not,” she said Monday.

“People will die if these sites are not opened.”

Sweet pointed out the NDP did a review into this very topic a year ago, and questioned the need for the UCP to repeat that work.

The UCP election platform promised $100 million for a comprehensive mental health and addiction strategy, and $40 million for an opioid strategy.

“But in order to spend the money wisely and responsibly, we do need to take a look at what have we learned from our current process,” Luan said.

“Our commitment is to the full continuum of care, so all the way from harm reduction to recovery.”

Premier Jason Kenney is opposed to safe injection sites, and criticized them  when he was opposition leader.

“Helping addicts inject poison into their bodies is not a long-term solution to the problem” of drug addiction, he wrote on Facebook in 2018, after voicing his opposition to the sites in an interview with the Lethbridge Herald.

“Enabling someone to commit slow motion suicide — to throw their life away — is not compassion.”

Edmonton Journal 

Erica Schoen is the director of the supervised drug consumption site at Boyle Street Community Services on August 8, 2018. Shaughn Butts / Postmedia SHAUGHN BUTTS / POSTMEDIA