The lone supervised drug consumption sites in Calgary and Lethbridge will close at the end of June, the provincial government announced on Friday.
Calgary’s supervised consumption site (SCS) was the first of its kind to open in Alberta in 2017. It has been lauded by advocates as providing a life-saving service, but also targeted with criticism from people who blame it for public drug use and calls to police in its vicinity.
As the UCP government shifted its addiction services from a focus on harm reduction to more recovery-oriented care, the province first announced it planned to close Calgary’s SCS at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre nearly five years ago. In December, Alberta’s Mental Health and Addiction ministry renewed its promise to shutter the site.
Well naturally. That is the whole point. Conservatives don’t want to help people, they want them dead as cheaply and expeditiously as possible. Opioids are the perfect tool. It makes our underclasses a self-solving problem.
