Nanaimo, B.C.’s downtown drug experiment has failed to stabilize its overdose rate. It has managed, however, to line the city’s oldest streets with feces, garbage, hit-and-runs, doorway fires and damaged property — a situation so bad that city council, just last week, considered fortifying its parking lot with a 1.8-metre fence.
City council ultimately rejected that $412,000 proposal — which might be for the best, considering how everyone else in the area wouldn’t be entitled to its protection. But the fact it was even pondered to begin with is an indictment of “harm reduction” in the little city — and a warning to everyone else who wants to try it.
