Injecting Hope: Tackling Drug Overdose with Harm Reduction

Injecting Hope examines the ongoing drug overdose crisis in Vancouver, British Columbia, and explores how harm reduction initiatives are being used to save lives and connect people with healthcare and support services. ABC7 News reporter Tara Campbell takes viewers to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, home to Insite, North America’s first sanctioned safe consumption site, for a closer look at the challenges facing people who use drugs and the communities affected by the crisis.¹

Through expert insights and personal stories, the documentary explores the role of harm reduction, the impact of fentanyl on the illicit drug supply, and the complex social factors that often accompany substance use, including trauma, homelessness, and barriers to treatment. Injecting Hope offers a ground-level perspective on one of Canada’s most pressing public health issues and the ongoing debate over how best to address it.

"I’m a young adult from foster care; I’ve been on the streets since I was a kid. I’m from sex trafficking and… So, I don’t know. Hitchhiked across Canada. I’m here now, escaping an abusive relationship."

"There’s been a reckoning, a realization over the last number of years that continued enforcement, continually arresting drug addicts, drug users, doesn’t stop them from being drug users, doesn’t stop the crime from happening. And you can make an argument that it actually can lead to more crime. We believe that there’s merit in harm reduction, but we also believe that more treatments are needed for people’s complex social needs."

"When people talk about Insite and harm reduction services being enabling, I really don’t think that they’re understanding what drives catastrophic drug use in this community and other communities. It is shame. It is pain. It is stigma. Anything that tries to ameliorate those feelings is working in a positive direction around people’s drug use. We’re not being judgmental because judgment only drives people further into the shadows."⁵

¹ Insite was the first legally sanctioned supervised consumption site in North America, opening in 2003 in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. It operates under a Health Canada exemption from federal drug laws and follows a harm-reduction approach. Rather than requiring abstinence, Insite focuses on reducing the health, social, and economic harms associated with drug use.
² More recent operational reporting shows the service now functions as part of a wider network of overdose prevention and emergency response sites, with overdose events increasingly being managed across multiple supervised locations and diverted into emergency care rather than occurring solely on-site.
³ People who use drugs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside have historically relied on emergency departments because structural barriers—such as stigma, unstable housing, lack of identification, and prior negative healthcare experiences—limit access to primary care. Evidence from Canadian harm reduction research also shows supervised consumption services reduce avoidable emergency department strain by redirecting non-fatal overdoses and complications into more appropriate, ongoing care pathways.
⁴ More recent provincial reporting shows that while Vancouver experienced a sharp rise in deaths during the fentanyl-driven wave of the crisis, British Columbia has since seen fluctuating but recently declining toxic drug deaths after a peak period in the early 2020s. The broader trend highlights that fentanyl remains the dominant driver of overdose mortality in the province, even as annual totals vary year to year and shift across health authorities.
⁵ Large Canadian evidence reviews conclude that supervised consumption sites do not increase drug use initiation, frequency, or local crime rates, countering a common public misconception. Instead, research consistently finds these services primarily reach long-term, high-risk users and function as a gateway into healthcare, addiction treatment, and social supports rather than a driver of increased substance use.