Harm Reduction Coalition invited experts from several countries to share their various SIF models, planning and policy development process, implementation challenges, and evaluation results. This report is a summary of the proceedings of the consultation.

Conclusions

At the risk of ‘spoilers’ here are the conclusions of the report:

• People who use SIFs take better care of themselves, reduce or eliminate their needle sharing, use their drugs more safely, and ultimately reduce their drug use;
• SIF participants gain access to other medical and social services and entry into drug treatment;
• There has not been a single overdose death in any of these programs over many years of operation and many thousands supervised of injections;
• SIFs do not increase drug use in the area, nor do they encourage young people to initiate drug use;
• Crime and public nuisance decrease in the areas around these programs.