Stop using bylaws and business licences to quash overdose prevention, say advocates. Instead, work to facilitate creative solutions
Traci Letts says her 30-year-old son might not have moved from their family home in Langley if there had been an overdose prevention site in town.
Evidence has shown repeatedly that overdose prevention sites save lives and connect people to health, housing and social supports. As voters head to the municipal polls on Oct. 15, Letts and Shane want to remind all levels of government and health authorities of their power and legal duty to take action to prevent toxic drug deaths.
Many landlords are hesitant to lease to an OPS, a problem Vancouver and Victoria city councils have alleviated by leasing city-owned buildings directly to overdose prevention site operators in recent years. In Chilliwack, city council introduced a new zoning class including overdose preventions sites and requiring public hearings to designate new sites, effectively quashing one that already had funding from the Overdose Emergency Response Centre.
Municipalities can also become allies for drug user groups looking to set up overdose prevention sites. “Need is the sole criterion required to establish OPS in a community,” reads a recent brief she wrote on the issue. “All other factors, including local government or public perspectives on harm reduction, are irrelevant by comparison.”
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