A Halifax law professor says he is one of several academic community members who are supportive of an overdose prevention site (OPS) in Halifax.
“There’s been a kind of advocacy consortium of social scientists, service providers, lawyers, professors and some of my own law students who have been trying to create the application to permit this to go forward,” said Archibald Kaiser said, a professor at the Schulich School of Law.
“So, it’s been a small but lively and I hope ultimately effective group.”
READ MORE: Halifax mother’s death prompts calls for an overdose prevention site
The provincial government has not yet approved the opening of an OPS in Halifax but has previously stated that they are working with community-based harm reduction organizations to determine appropriate models for safer consumption in Nova Scotia.
Kaiser feels an OPS would help increase overall public health and safety.
“Our government and governments around the world are now recognizing that we can’t arrest ourselves out of the harms that are done by drugs. We can’t use the criminal law exclusively,” he said.
“We have to think more about how we can promote public safety and public health simultaneously and I think the root of harm reduction, including an overdose prevention site, really does accomplish both goals. It will conduce to protecting public safety but it will also save lives.”
Harm reduction advocates feel that misconceptions surrounding an OPS only push the dangers associated with drug use further into the shadows, where risks of overdose and disease are heightened.
WATCH: Nova Scotia may soon see the province’s first overdose prevention site
Overdose prevention sites are part of a wide range of safe consumption models that have opened across Canada, in response to the overdose crisis flagged by Health Canada.
“You really need to bring it into the light and give people an option to see it as a social problem, so that they can actually make the changes and feel comfortable doing so without being judged,” Mitts said.
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