Two Ontario government-commissioned reports recommended keeping existing drug consumption sites open, increasing funding to help stabilize staffing and hiring permanent security guards to increase safety.
But Health Minister Sylvia Jones decided against those recommendations, announcing this week that the government would ban supervised consumption sites near schools and prohibit new ones from opening in the future.
The province is instead shifting to a treatment-focused model as it moves away from supervised consumption, and the new rules will mean the closure of 10 such sites across Ontario.