Supervised inhalation sites take surprising forms in B.C. amid challenges setting them up

A glass enclosure that looks like a bus stop. A repurposed ice-fishing tent in a car park.

While they might look trivial in the face of a mounting toxic drug crisis, these consumption sites designed for smoking substances are saving lives, overdose prevention workers say — and are doing so despite the financial and bureaucratic challenges setting them up.

Almost 5,000 people have died from toxic drugs in British Columbia in the past two years alone, according to the provincial coroners' service. 

At least half of them were smoking the substances that killed them — and that proportion is growing, says Jordan Stewart, executive director of the Pounds Project.

The overdose prevention service in Prince George, B.C., currently offers supervised injection services, and Stewart says it now has support for an outdoor space that includes a small shed dedicated to smoking. When established, it will be the first official supervised inhalation site in the city in two years. 

Stewart says there are many reasons people prefer inhaling drugs. There is less risk of infection compared to injecting, it's easier to conceal and use and quicker to prepare. 

"Unfortunately, the overdose risk remains exactly the same," she said. 

But health officials, as well as advocates, say it's taking too long for supervised inhalation sites to be set up in response to that reality and that they remain few and far between in many parts of the province. 

Dr. Jong Kim, chief medical health officer for Northern Health, says that's due in part to the initial strategy in dealing with the crisis when a public health emergency was declared in 2016.

"At the beginning, one of the main focuses was ensuring naloxone was more broadly available ... not necessarily safe consumption, but harm reduction," Kim said. 

Yet, as far back as 2017, smoking was the mode of consuming substances that most often led to death, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. 

In a written response, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions says it knows there's "more to do, and won't stop working until all British Columbians can access the supports they need and deserve."

In the meantime, some service providers are getting creative. 

Behind the Cowichan Valley Wellness and Recovery Centre, a boxy brown building at the edge of downtown Duncan, B.C., is a structure that could be mistaken for an out-of-place bus stop.