Efforts to turn the overdose prevention site into a supervised consumption site took a small step forward after nearly three years of inaction. (File photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Spencer Sterritt

Wesley St. STRUGGLES

Major decisions on downtown Nanaimo supervised consumption site deferred again

Jan 14, 2020 | 9:10 AM

NANAIMO — The issue of evolving downtown Nanaimo’s contentious overdose prevention site and easing zoning rules around such facilities is still in bureaucratic limbo.

Zoning amendments were asked for by councillors on the issue in July, 2019 but all options were dismissed by councillors during Monday night’s meeting.

Councillors and medical health officer Dr. Paul Hasselback once again sparred on the issue, specifically over definitions within current zoning bylaws which Hasselback finds discriminatory.

“You’ve already agreed to this in July of last year that you would agree to this,” Hasselback told councillors. “That was seven months and we still have a bylaw in place and we haven’t made those changes.”

Coun. Ben Geselbracht had brought forward a motion deferring the issue of site-specific zoning for the facility to the committee level and questioned the urgency of the issue.

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“Your words echo exactly what one person at council said in May of 2017,” Hasselback told coun. Ben Geselbracht. “Here we are two-and-a-half years later and we haven’t gotten anywhere. It doesn’t sound like it’s very urgent.”

Nanaimo’s overdose prevention site has existed on Wesley Rd. by City Hall since January, 2017. It was hastily approved at the near-height of the overdose crisis, which claimed more than 50 lives in Nanaimo that year.

The number of opioid-related deaths in Nanaimo has dropped significantly from a peak in 2017 but Hasselback noted fatalities are still five-times higher than pre-2013 levels.

It’s estimated there are roughly 1,200 people in Nanaimo with opiate-based substance use disorders and roughly half of them inject their drugs. Injection drugs are not allowed at the current site.

A supervised consumption site is more evolved version of the site and falls more in line with official Health Canada regulations.

When the prospect of turning the overdose prevention site into a supervised consumption site was denied by Nanaimo’s past administration, it was believed new services such as counselling and the ability to legally inject drugs would be at the site.

However, it was revealed during Monday’s discussion there now wouldn’t be any additional services if a supervised consumption site was put in place.

Dr. Hasselback said there’s no funding for such services and Island Health hasn’t moved forward with new programming due to budget constraints.

After a lengthy two hour discussion, which mayor Leonard Krog said he considered to be a conversation about nothing, some aspects of the matter were deferred to the committee level.

A motion from coun. Tyler Brown passed 7-2, asking the topic be brought up at the health and housing task force while City staff once again bring forward different zoning bylaw amendments.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit