2 years in, Yukon's supervised consumption site is a proven success, officials say

Yukon's first supervised consumption site for drug users is exceeding expectations and saving lives, according to the territorial government and the non-profit that helps run the facility.

The site, at 6189 Sixth Ave. in Whitehorse, opened a little over two years ago and was designed to provide a safer and more hygienic environment for people to use drugs under the supervision of qualified medical staff. 

"We've exceeded what we had initially thought the reach was going to be," said Brontë Renwick-Shields, executive director of the Blood Ties Four Directions Centre. The organization operates the site in partnership with the Yukon government.

"It's just been very positive in terms of the way that it's increased the health and well-being of people who use drugs in our community."

When it opened in September 2021, Yukon became the sixth jurisdiction in Canada to open a supervised consumption site. About eight months later, the Yukon facility added an area for users who inhale their drugs and Renwick-Shields said that made a big change.

"We knew that without the smoke room, the use of the site would be limited because at the site right now approximately 95 per cent of consumptions are smoking," she said.

"As soon as that opened, we started to see like a significant increase in uptake in the site. And that of course builds over time." 

As of the end of last month, there had been 6,869 visits to the site by 382 different people. There had been 6,008 consumptions on site.

Renwick-Shields also said last week that facility staff had responded to 51 overdoses since opening, and all were successfully dealt with.

The usage of the site continues to increase, Renwick-Shields says, with as many visits in the last six months as in the previous 18 months. She chalks that up a growing familiarity and trust in the facility, rather than an significant increase in the number of drug users.

"The majority of folks, [drug use] is something that's been a part of their life for a while," she said.

"The concept of using substances in a space that was safe, and where there won't be police interference was really foreign to folks, and that took a lot of time for us to build trust that wouldn't happen in that space."

She says more people are also using Blood Ties' drug-testing service, and she believes that's because they can now consume those drugs at the same place. Before, people would have to go elsewhere to consume the drugs after testing.

Cameron Grandy, director of the Yukon government's Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services, agrees that the facility has proven to be a success when it comes to harm reduction.