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