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Opinion: An Alberta injection site was shut down; what followed proved activists wrong

New study about closure of Red Deer site shows there was no increase in overdose deaths

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Over the past two years, there has been a heated debate about the closure of overdose prevention sites, not just in Alberta cities such as Red Deer, but also in Toronto and Ottawa. Such supervised injection sites — increasingly seen as hubs of crime or disorder and often dropped into neighbourhoods with high concentrations of social services — have become so unpopular that relentless campaigns opposing new sites have made headlines in Winnipeg and Montreal as well.

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On Tuesday, a striking new study about injection sites was published online in the scientific journal Addiction, which is likely to raise further questions about the evidence Health Canada and others have relied on to justify drug policy decisions that often override community safety concerns.

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There are two unique elements to this study. First, the study focuses on an overdose prevention site........

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