Supervised injection site up for debate Monday at health board meeting

Ray Harrison has seen people shoot upusing water from toilets and puddles.

He's pulled friends who were overdosing in the street to a phone booth to call 911, so they wouldn't be tracked by police.

Now Harrison a former drug user himself who says he's been clean since the New Year's Day2014 says it's time for Ottawa to open a supervised injection site.

He believes they will help prevent people from spreading disease and give them a reason to access health care services, which could start them on a road to breaking their addictions.

"You need to be able to startsomewhereand not necessarily when you hit rock bottom, when you get incarcerated," Harrison told CBC News ahead of tonight's Ottawa Board of Health meeting.

The city's medical officer of health, Dr.IsraLevy, is expected tomake his case at that meeting for why Ottawashould have supervised injection sites, and why Ottawa Public Health should support agencies that propose to set them up.

• City of Ottawa should support supervised injection, says medical officer of health
• Sandy Hill not only neighbourhood centre looking at offering supervised injection

Community health centres will be at tonight's Ottawa Board of Health meeting to offer Levy their full support,and Harrison is planningto be there, too.

"I think the safer injection site will save a lot of people,and the community,a lot of grief; along with the police [since] they're not having to chase these people down in somebody's backyard," Harrison said.

'The time is definitely now'

For many yearsCanadians heard only about the contentious Insiteprogram in Vancouver.

That facility,which opened in 2003, has long been theonly supervised injection site in the country but as Levy notesin his report, a2011Supreme Court decision that granted Insite an exemption soits clients would not be charged for possessing illegal drugs has had a major impact across the country.

Thedecisionhas led agencies in other cities, suchasToronto, Montreal, and Edmonton,to consider seeking the same exemption.

Another shift has taken place at the political level. For years, the Conservatives tried to shut down Insite in Vancouver, but current Health MinisterJane Philpotthas said such supervised injection sites can save lives.

"I think we've seen a drastic shift in the last few months, for sure," saidStan Kupferschmidt, who runs the harm reduction program at the Somerset West Community Health Centre.

Across Ottawa, centres like Somerset West hand out a total ofabout 775,000 clean needles each year, andKupferschmidt says it's bizarrethey can distribute needles but notoffer addicts a safe space to use them.

"There's a certain element of hypocrisy, when I'm handing a homeless person a syringe kit and I'm telling them they can't use them in the building, they need to go outside in minus-30 degree weather in the winter," he said.

"The time [for supervised injection sites] is definitely now. The time was yesterday, as well."

'Alone [in] the night'

While Levy and a number of community health centres have been vocal in their support for supervised injection sites in Ottawa, not everyone agrees.

Mayor Jim Watson has maintainedthe focus should be on providing additional treatment options for drug users, while Ottawa police Chief Charles Bordeleauhas expressed concerns about public safety.

Levy, however, told CBC News that once people are presented with the research around safe injection sites, they tend to change their mind.

"The alternative is to turn a blind eye and to have these people leave our care, and go off alone into the night and struggle alone" said Levy.

"For me that's a bigger issue, and one that I can't really live with."

Tonight's health board meeting is scheduled to get underway at 5 p.m.