Vancouver’s first indoor supervised inhalation site is ready to open with the aim of reducing overdose deaths and disease transmission, offering referrals for those seeking treatment and decreasing drug use in public.
The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV and AIDS (BC-CfE) unveiled the inhalation site Wednesday at Hope to Health Research and Innovation Centre in the Downtown Eastside, after construction was complete.
The Executive Director of BC-CfE Julio Montaner says supervised injection sites have been successful in preventing people from dying from overdoses, and those who smoke their drugs need a similar service.
“The number of people who were dying from overdoses who had a background of injection drug use was decreasing over time. On the other hand, the number of people dying from in the context of smoking drugs was increasing in a very rapid fashion,” he said.
Montaner says people can start using these rooms in the coming weeks.
“(The inhalation room) attached to a medical facility is an ideal way to engage people in a conversation regarding the use and even when they are ready, willing and able, we can help them to transition to better programs, whether it’s medical programs,” he said.
The centre has been running a supervised injection site for years which sees more than a thousand people monthly and last month resuscitated five people who were overdosing.
The new facilities offer indoor, individual, negative-pressure rooms that allow fresh air to circulate and can clear out smoke in 30 to 60 seconds while users are monitored by trained nurses.
Advocates calling for more supervised inhalation sites have previously said the rules for setting up sites are overly complicated at a time when the province is facing an overdose crisis.
More than 15,000 people have died of overdoses since the public health emergency was declared in B.C. in April 2016.
Kate Salters, a senior researcher at the centre, said they worked with mechanical and chemical engineers to make sure the site is up to code and abides by the highest standard of occupational health and safety.
“This is just another tool in our tool box to make sure that we’re offering life-saving services to those who are using drugs,” she said.
Montaner acknowledged the process to get the site up and running took “an inordinate amount of time,” but said the centre worked hard to follow all regulations.
“We feel that doing this right, with (an) appropriate scientific background, in a medically supervised environment, etc, etc, allows us to derive the data that ultimately will be sufficiently convincing for not just our leaders, but also the leaders across the country and across the world, to embrace the strategies that we are trying to develop,” he said.
Montaner said building the facility was possible thanks to a single $4-million donation from a longtime supporter.
Construction finished less than a week before the launch of the next provincial election campaign and within a year of the next federal election.
Montaner said people could start using the specialized rooms in a matter of weeks after final approvals from the city and federal government.
According to the BC Coroners Service drug smoking-related overdose deaths have overtaken those by injection, with smoking-related deaths increasing from 29 per cent in 2016 to 65 per cent in 2023. Whereas, injection-related overdose fatalities have decreased from 36 per cent in 2016 to 15 per cent in 2023.
-With files from Maria Vinca and The Canadian Press.