EDMONTON – Alberta’s NDP government and the official Opposition are clashing over supervised drug consumption sites set up to help fight the growing number of deaths from opioids such as fentanyl.
United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney says scarce resources should be directed to eradicating the flow of illegal drugs or to help people beat addictions.
He says allowing drugs to be used in a supervised area does not help people or solve the problem in the long run.
Alberta has set up two supervised sites — in Calgary and Lethbridge — with three more opening in Edmonton in the coming
weeks.
Associate Health Minister Brandy Payne says the province is committed to getting to the root of the crisis, but in the meantime the sites are keeping people from overdosing and dying.
New numbers from the province show that overdose deaths due to the opioid fentanyl continue to rise, with 562 deaths in 2017 compared with 358 the year before.
