FIXED NEEDLE EXCHANGE WOULD EASE PROBLEMS

The more we marginalize, stigmatize and dehumanize people who are
homeless, the more we dehumanize ourselves. It's interesting to read
observations that downtown is in worse shape than in 2008, the same
year Victoria's only fixed-site needle exchange was closed.

Instead of poor-bashing and making "others" of people living on the
streets, our community should be advocating for a federal housing
strategy and locally, increased services such as supervised
consumption, which have been proven to reduce public injecting.

I fail to understand the logic that adding fixed-site needle exchange
services to an area where people are already publicly using illicit
drugs would make that situation any worse. Needle exchanges and
supervised consumption services are key elements to reducing the
number of discarded syringes on our streets and increasing our
community's capacity to address public drug use practically and humanely.

Heather Hobbs

Victoria