Richmond seeking review of potential supervised consumption site near hospital

Richmond city council voted in favour Monday of considering a supervised consumption site, in the wake of B.C. recording its highest number of toxic drug deaths last year.

The vote passed 8-1 during a general purposes committee meeting. The motion, which was brought forward by Coun. Kash Heed, called for staff to "gauge the potential benefits and challenges of implementing a drug consumption site" near Richmond Hospital. The review is meant to consider the impact to public safety, health-care costs and community perceptions.

"We will be judged by society on how we deal with and how we treat our most vulnerable populations," Heed, who is a former police officer and previously served as B.C.'s public safety minister, said at the meeting.

Heed said there was a "real misunderstanding" of what was being proposed, saying it's a supervised consumption site and not an overdose prevention site. Heed explained the site would be run by Vancouver Coastal Health with a health practitioner on site. Overdose prevention sites, however, are peer-run with trained staff, he said.

Coun. Chak Au was the only one to vote against the motion.

"I think the debate over supervised consumption sites will save lives has to be drawn to the bigger picture, which is the injection site approach to address overdose deaths," he said. "If the injection sites were truly effective, we should be witnessing a decline in the number of these tragic deaths."

Ahead of Monday's general purposes committee meeting, one Richmond resident spoke out against the proposed site, with similar arguments to Au.

"Why do we need to spend taxpayers money on Richmond to study this issue, when we know it's already failed in Vancouver time and time again," Sheldon Starrett told CTV News Vancouver.

But many others were in favour of the motion at the meeting, arguing against the claim the supervised consumption sites aren't effective.

"The people who use drugs are in our community, in our lives and we may have possibly no idea," said David Byers, who was raised in Richmond and works with the B.C. Centre on Substance Use.

"I have seen the first-hand impact that a safe consumption site can have on individuals' health and well-being. By that I mean the wounds that have an opportunity to heal, the people that have an opportunity to be warm and access water and a washroom, the bare minimum that we deserve of dignity."

Vancouver has 12 supervised consumption sites, including the first that ever opened in North America. Federal data shows no fatal overdoses have occurred at any supervised consumption site across the country. 

Toxic drugs killed 2,511 British Columbians in 2023, including 26 people in Richmond.