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Derek Finkle: Injection sites don't reduce harm, but activists won't listen

When an Alberta injection site closed, its clients didn't have more fatalities and emergency department visits

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A recent study about what happened when an injection site in Red Deer, Alberta, shut down has opened a highly contentious new chapter in the ongoing debate over supervised consumption sites.

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The study, published in early March by the journal Addiction, concluded that fatalities and emergency department visits did not increase for the site’s clients after it closed. The findings attracted the attention of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who shared my column about it on social media.

Derek Finkle: Injection sites don't reduce harm, but activists won't listen Back to video

Days later, one of Canada’s most vocal pro-injection site social media influencers, Guy Felicella, denounced the study as “methodologically flawed.” “SOMETHING STINKS,” he insisted. More articulate criticism soon landed in the form of an op-ed in the Edmonton Journal, and later, a letter to the editor in Addiction.

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The study also drew the ire of Dan Werb, a proponent of injection sites and scientist with MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions in Toronto, who was quoted in a March CBC article, saying he found aspects of the Red Deer study “troubling as an academic.”

The main criticism Werb levelled was that the study was produced by the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence (CoRE), a recovery-oriented research entity created in 2024 by the Alberta government. The study includes the following disclaimer about funding: “This research did not receive a specific project-based grant. (CoRE), with which several authors are affiliated, receives public funding from the Government of........

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