'Recreational drug use is not safe': Recovering addict speaks out against safe consumption site

A Winnipeg father who lost his son to drugs - and is a recovering addict himself - is speaking out against the idea of a safe consumption site in Manitoba.

The new NDP government is planning on establishing a supervised drug consumption site, with the aim of preventing accidental overdoses.

Joseph Fourre has personal experience at a similar site in Alberta. Five years ago, he was a meth addict in Edmonton. Fourre said it was in front of a safe consumption site that he was offered heroin for the first time.

"I believe that I wouldn't have found it that night, I believe that I probably wouldn't have tried it that night had we not gone there," said Fourre.

He's against the new provincial government's plan to open a safe drug injection site in Winnipeg, saying that illegal drug dealers will set up shop where they know the addicts will be.

"Kind of like the food trucks on Broadway, right?" he said. "They go there because the people are there."

Advocate organizations say the role of a supervised consumption site is to keep addicts alive until they can get into treatment.

"A safer supply and safe consumption sites are critical components of an overall harm reduction strategy," said Marion Willis of St. Boniface Street Links.

Willis said a safe site is needed in Winnipeg, but added it has to be combined with other supports such as detox and treatment beds.

"It is prevention, it's harm reduction, it's recovery supports, diversion, and it's suppression," said Willis.

Fourre is pushing for more, prevention treatment drug testing and education.

His son Harlan died six months ago after unknowingly taking a drug laced with fentanyl. Fourre said people need to know that no drug is safe, no matter where it's consumed."

"So over the course of the last six months I've been working really hard, trying to get the message out to young people that recreational drug use is not safe," he said.