Third supervised drug-use site to open in Vancouver

Drug users in Vancouver now have the option of consuming drugs under supervision at a third federally sanctioned facility, as Ottawa increases the availability of the controversial service amid a worsening opioid crisis.

The city's latest supervised drug-use site was set to open Friday in the city's Downtown Eastside at the Powell Street Getaway, a drop-in centre for people living with mental-health and substance-use challenges.

Health Canada granted the centre an exemption to the country's drug laws in May and completed an inspection this week.

British Columbia's Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy said the aim of the service is to prevent overdose deaths and connect people with needed services.

Insite opened in the same neighbourhood as a stand-alone facility in 2003, when a public-health emergency was declared over high rates of HIV in the Downtown Eastside. At the time, it was the first government-sanctioned supervised drug-use site in North America.

Another site at the Dr. Peter Centre, which specializes in HIV/AIDS care, opened without permission a year earlier, in 2002. It received federal approval last year.

Vancouver Coastal Health funds all three facilities.

For years, Insite was the only facility in the country to have federal approval, but a series of recent announcements mean there are now 15 either open or approved to open in B.C., Ontario and Quebec.

Previously, such sites were limited to injection-drug users, but health officials are pushing to have other forms of drugs included. Last month, Health Canada approved two applications for sites that would also allow users to consume drugs by swallowing or snorting them.

Vancouver's health authority has asked Health Canada to allow people at the Powell Street Getaway to take drugs orally or nasally.

The Canadian Press, with files from The Globe and Mail