It’s time for show; tell has failed to convince opponents of supervised consumption’s benefits with facts

After one false start and facing a fresh surge in opposition over a new proposal, there’s nothing left for Manitoba’s NDP government to do but dig in and show people that supervised consumption works.

Since making the pledge to open a supervised consumption facility to reduce overdoses, the NDP has struggled mightily to win the public relations war that has erupted over its plans.

Public opposition torpedoed a plan to establish a supervised consumption site east of Main Street at the foot of the Disraeli Bridge. Although the proposal was good health policy, it was horrid public relations.

At public consultations on the Disraeli site, Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith had few specific details about whether any special efforts would be made to ensure the site, and the neighbourhood in the immediate vicinity, were kept safe.

For its most recent proposal for a site in a largely industrial area on Henry Avenue west of Main Street, the overall effort has been much better. Unfortunately, it seems the result has been largely the same.

At a consultation this week, Smith was once again bombarded with allegations that her plan for a supervised consumption site is not fully fleshed out.

Allegations that “your plan is not a real plan” is a convenient line of attack made by people who find supervised consumption to be counterintuitive.

However, if they could set aside their outrage for a moment, they might want to ask themselves a simple question: what is the best way to help a neighbourhood that has already been ravaged by chronic homelessness, open drug use and collateral violent and property crime?

Just eliminating the problem is not feasible. So, if opponents can be fair-minded for a moment, they’ll realize that the best way to improve safety in their neighbourhood is to provide support and services that cut down on open drug use and overdoses from opioids.

The opioid crisis is one of the biggest threats to public health and safety in our cities because it is so large and pervasive, there is simply not enough police, emergency paramedical services and health care to deal with the carnage. Overdoses trigger responses from all first responders and then, eventually, choke hospital emergency rooms.

Supervised consumption helps reduce ODs, freeing up police and emergency responders to attend to other pressing matters and eliminating a huge bottleneck in ERs. Oh, and it saves lives.

That is not the only benefit. Supervised consumption is also one of the most direct and effective ways to improve overall safety in neighbourhoods experiencing chronic homelessness, addictions and mental-health crises.

That is what makes this debate so frustrating. Opponents to the Henry Avenue proposal seem to be ignoring the fact that a supervised consumption site will bring with it new and amplified efforts to discourage loitering and disruptive behaviour, open drug use and criminal activity.

Let’s take a look at what steps are being taken to make the Henry Avenue site safe.

In addition to security fencing and cameras, the Winnipeg Police Service has promised an immediate response to deal with any criminal activity, such as drug dealing. The Downtown Community Safety Partnership, which already provides street-level support, has adjusted its patrol routes to be more present in a four-block radius of the site.

There will also be support from the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre, which operates a nearby detox centre. AHWC staff will be working closely with people wanting to access the safe consumption site to come and go in an orderly fashion and to keep the immediate area clean and free of needles and other drug paraphernalia.

Put it altogether and what you get is more attention and support from police and social services than the area gets now. That means opponents of the Henry Avenue proposal are, in fact, pushing back against better policing and social service oversight in a neighbourhood that area is already struggling with drugs and dysfunction.

The suggestion that these sites, properly managed, make the neighbourhoods in which they are located safer is not just wild speculation. Social scientists have been trying for several years to quantify the net benefits of supervised consumption.

In a study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers examined crime-rate data in the immediate vicinity of nine supervised sites located in Toronto. The JAMA study found that while there was some variance across all nine sites, in general, they “were associated with neutral to positive improvements in local crime trends.”

An additional and somewhat surprising source of data is coming from Ontario cities that have just lost supervised consumption sites following Premier Doug Ford’s decision earlier this year to defund them.

Ontario communities that lost the facilities have seen a huge spike in open drug use, overdoses and deaths. Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Hamilton’s chief medical officer of health, said in published reports this past summer that overdose levels had risen to 2022 levels, when the opioid crisis was at its worst.

The NDP government has empirical data and moral imperatives — saving lives and reducing the burden on health and safety providers — backing its proposal.

All Smith, Premier Wab Kinew and others can do now is show people supervised consumption works. Just telling them doesn’t seem to be doing the job.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca