Saskatoon police watching safe injection site proposal closely

Saskatoon police are planning to keep a close eye on the area around a safe injection site for illicit drug users, should the Pleasant Hill facility be approved by the federal government.

AIDS Saskatoon has applied to operate the site on 20th Street near St. Paul’s Hospital, where drug users would be allowed to use supplied needles and paraphernalia to consume in an environment supervised by health professionals.

Police Chief Troy Cooper told 650 CKOM on Tuesday that his department contributed to the application by providing feedback and a baseline of crime in the area over the last three years.

He said officials from Saskatoon police have recently travelled to both Calgary and Lethbridge to observe how safe consumption sites operate in those cities and they’re still reviewing the data.

However, they are aware of cases in other jurisdictions where crime increased in areas where safe injection sites were located.

So police are getting ready to focus on the area.

“What we expect to see is either a concentration of existing police resources to the area or potentially some additional resources,” Cooper said.

He noted drug crime is already prevalent in the Pleasant Hill area, with 16 per cent of drug-related calls coming from the neighbourhood. Eight per cent of total calls come from within 250 metres of where the proposed site would go.

Cooper said police efforts around the safe injection site would focus on keeping people in the area safe.

“Our role there is to work in conjunction with the site,” he said.

“We know that it might develop a bit of a community in the area of people who do use it, and they’re easily victimized … Our focus will be for disturbances and that sort of thing, but also for people who come to prey on (drug users).”

Cooper added he’s in favour of harm reduction strategies, which a safe injection site is considered, as long as they direct addicts towards services that can help them.