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Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) operates North America’s first legal supervised injection site (Insite) in partnership with Portland Hotel Society Community Services (PHS).
Insite was designed to be accessible to injection drug users who are not well connected to health care services – men and women who use more than one drug; people who experience both addiction and mental illness; people with a history of trauma; people who are homeless, live in shelters or live in substandard housing; men and women of Aboriginal descent and people who have tried unsuccessfully in the past to beat their drug addiction.
Since opening its doors in 2003, Insite has been a safe, health-focused place where people can go to inject drugs and connect to health care services – from primary care to treat disease and infection, to addiction counselling and treatment. Insite is an integral part of Vancouver Coastal Health’s continuum of care for people with addiction, mental illness and HIV/AIDS in the Vancouver community.
Insite currently operates under a constitutional exception to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The BC Ministry of Health provides operational funding for Insite through Vancouver Coastal Health.
Insite has benefitted from a comprehensive peer-reviewed evaluation process: the first such evaluation of a supervised injection facility worldwide. As such, the information available on patterns of use and outcomes is both comprehensive and reliable. And the results speak for themselves.
VCH Resources