The entrance to the Supervised Consumption Site in Lethbridge. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Review meeting for Alberta’s supervised consumption services in Lethbridge September 4th and 5th

Aug 22, 2019 | 11:08 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The provincial government has announced its plans to speak with the people of Lethbridge about supervised consumption services.

They said on August 19th that they would be touring Albertan communities that have SCS’s but are now unveiling details.

The review committee will be in Lethbridge on Wednesday, September 4th and Thursday, September 5th at the Grand Ballroom in the Coast Lethbridge Hotel and Conference Centre from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

The scope of the review will include crime rates, needle debris, residential property values, emergency medical services calls, impacts to businesses, data collection, referrals to treatment providers, overdose referrals, and proposals for solutions to address the impacts.

What will not be in the review are the merits of SCS’s as harm reduction tools, the utility of these services in each community, establishing SCS’s outside of the current or proposed sites, provincial funding, and social issues like housing and homelessness.

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The committee includes eight people who are psychiatrists, addictions and recovery experts, crime reduction specialists, real estate and business leaders and behavioural scientists.

In-person public engagement sessions are also being held in Medicine Hat on Tuesday, September 3rd and Red Deer on Tuesday, September 10th. Dates for the meetings in Grande Prairie, Edmonton, and Calgary have not been announced.

There will also be an online survey for those who cannot attend in person, but the details of that are still being finalized.