Supervised injection sites dominate the talk at a Regional meeting about opioids
Posted Dec 5, 2017 02:30:49 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Heated arguments for and against supervised injection sites were the mainstay of a four-and-a-half hour long meeting at Regional headquarters, Tuesday.
The issue: how to deal with the opioid crisis, and develop a Harm Reduction Strategy.
Chair of the Region’s Community Services Committee, Geoff Lorentz tells 570 NEWS, “the whole idea of supervised injection sites scares the hell out of me.”
But he adds, you have to hear both sides, and he’s going to Toronto to see first-hand how these sites work.
He says they’ve heard concerns about the need for such sites, but also fears about drug dealers setting up shop right across the street.
Regional staff will issue a report in January, and Lorentz says Council could decide on an action plan in the early Spring.
But he says he’d be OK if it takes longer to make a decision, because whatever the solution is, we have to get it right, adding there’s no opportunity to make mistakes.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Lorentz says it was made clear opioids and needles are not exclusively a Cambridge problem, but a problem all across Waterloo Region.
