How a new medication could help Manitobans with addictions

Yeah, so 2017, that's when we started to really get a sense of what public opinion was like.

So a poll at the time, it actually found that 46% of Winnipeggers supported the creation of a supervised consumption site.

Brian Bowman was mayor at the time, and after the poll came out, he said that opening a site was not a priority.

And then later that same year in 2017, Bear Clan co-founder James Favell joined CBC's Ismaila Alphon up to speed after finding hundreds of needles in just two abandoned buildings in Winnipeg's North End.

When you see something like that, that number of needles in one area, what do you think that says about Winnipeg's drug scene?

Well, I mean, it definitely highlights the fact that there is a problem here.

and that we need to find better solutions, you know, yeah,

something more needs to be done.

What is the root cause to this problem?

Well, I mean, I think a lot of it goes back to poverty.

I mean, you know, there's so much that goes into, you know, being in such abject poverty that, you know, there's no hope.

People give up.

They start doing self-medicating, committing crimes.

There's been an on-again, off-again conversation over safe injection sites here.

What's your opinion on

that? Again, I'm not for IV drug use, but I am for safe injection sites.

We have lost several community members over the last couple of years because we don't have those kinds of things in place.

And I say that if you can save a life, then spend the money, you know.

Just do that.

That's the right thing to do if you can save a life.

So you can tell public opinion is kind of starting to shift there.

And if you will notice, Marcy, the terms that have changed too, safe injection site has been replaced now with supervised consumption site.