Do you know when this policy was put in place? I was in Amsterdam about 15 years ago and it reminded me of San Francisco today. The train station and surrounding area was especially terrible. So I'm a little skeptical of this story.

The original policy has been in place since the 90s, and like the Portuguese and Swiss equivalent experience it drastically reduced the extremes of drug addiction.

The difference in the swiss city of Geneva at the central station in the late 80s and early 90s is hell and heaven. While it does not solve all problems the methadone heroin replacement system does solve the vast majority of negative issues. Petty crime and robbery dropped significantly, whores for drugs disappeared, needle reuse is non existent. And in the 80s I was warned with reason to look out for drug needles and not touch them. This is not a worry anymore, either in the Netherlands or Switzerland.

Both Amsterdam and Geneva suffer these days from organized street crime. But the risk of being attacked by a junky for your wallet is minimal. Organized street crime prefers to steal from you without you noticing and are quite skillful. Junkies needing money for a hit are more like dogs with rabies. The remaining junkies are rather fragile and slow, and not dangerous as long as they get their regular hit. Which they do in a safe and controlled environment.

Having been to San Fransisco and Amsterdam these are no longer comparable at all. 25 years ago I can believe but 15 years, no.

Don't know current Amsterdam situation, but we have a shooting place in Geneva, Switzerland and it works. I mean really works. Streets are cleaner, drug crime is lower. Its not a magical solution to every single problem out there obviously.

I think many people have issue accepting that drug addicts are part of society. Criminalize them, and the whole underworld evolves but it won't affect their numbers much. Put death sentence on drug use, and there will still be healthy population of addicts.

So with your 'drawing line' approach and misleaded comparison to sex trade, you just give ammo fodder for far right-wing populist politics, polarizing society and law enforcement, increasing crime and making it more organized, while achieving very little positive impact. Something like famous US screw-up called War on drugs.

I don't buy that at all. No one continues to use drugs because it's a thrill, or it's fun to shoplift and commit crimes. They continue to use because they're addicted. I don't believe there is an easy solution for this problem, but just letting them go at it with their drugs is apathy. It's work and expensive to deal with addicts, and I think people just don't care enough to step in anymore.

The problem is that is exactly the case. There are people who love doing heroin, shitting on cars, smoking meth, terrorizing tourists, and committing minor property crimes and acts of vandalism. It takes a certain amount of activism to enable that behavior. That activism is the opposite of apathy.

These sites are not the equivalent of the brown paper bag for open alcohol where everyone tacitly agrees to look the other way. Properly planned supervised safe consumption sites are staffed to prevent overdoses, but also to offer basic addiction treatment. They serve as the intake point to a much larger system of treatment. Staff develop relationships with addicts that allow long term encouragement of treatment and safer behaviour. Far from apathy, properly supported safe consumption sites are one of the most engaged, active treatment programs available and numerous studies have shown significant harm reduction. Of course, if the goal is to just get addicts off the street it will fail horribly. Properly designed as the first rung of a much larger support system they can have remarkable success.

In my city people are clamouring so hard to get a safe consumption site just this week a dispute over where to host it was dropped out of fear we wouldn't get a site up and running at all. The mayor and some councillors wanted to use an empty lot along a major street on the edge of downtown, but that would require building a facility and all necessary funding hadn't been secured. Everyone on the ground involved in fighting homelessness and addiction wanted another location which has been vacant for a while. It's not too far from city hall and in a much more walkable location, but that places in near some other community centres. This location could be up and running in just a few months from the word go. Community leaders organized to convinced the mayor (who to his credit changed his mind) that approving an unfunded site risked not having a safe consumption at all. Every single person opposed to the more central location does want a safe injection site and also agreed to drop their opposition to the central site. Long term the best location may be the empty lot, but everyone involved didn't let perfect be the enemy of good. I've never been prouder to live in this city

If there's an active plan as you mention, that works, then I say go for it. But it sounds like a far cry from the magical wonder lands you see in cities where people are just shooting up and passing out where kids used to go play. Anything that is actively getting people help and minimizing damage sounds great.