By The Canadian Press

Vancouver drug users appeal for more safe injection sites amid overdose crisis

Jun 8, 2016 | 1:13 PM

VANCOUVER — Members of two British Columbia drug users’ advocacy groups are calling on the government to open more safe injection sites in an accelerated effort to stop overdose deaths.

Dozens of members from the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the B.C. Association of People On Methadone planned a rally outside the Downtown Eastside safe-injection site to urge governments to provide more funding.

VANDU staff member Aiyanas Ormond says B.C.’s declaration of a public-health emergency in April over a spike in overdoses was a good first step, but doesn’t amount to concrete action.

He says Vancouver’s landmark injection facility doesn’t need to be replicated, and existing health-care clinics could instead be granted permission to provide the service.

B.C.’s chief medical health officer Dr. Perry Kendall declared the crisis so that health authorities could start collecting overdose information in real time and target those findings to the most vulnerable.

Boogie The Bridge

Boogie The Bridge Event Information

23h ago

Week in Review

Week in Review: Week of April 15

1h ago

Two and Out

PETERS: The Loop's eviction will show us what happens when a bandage is ripped off a gaping wound

20h ago

In May, the BC Coroners Service reported the powerful drug fentanyl was linked to nearly half of more than 250 overdose deaths tallied in the province in the first four months of this year.