{"id":549689,"date":"2026-03-20T20:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/549689\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:09:13","slug":"alberta-to-shutter-calgary-lethbridge-supervised-drug-consumption-sites-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/549689\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta to shutter Calgary, Lethbridge supervised drug consumption sites \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CALGARY \u2013 The Alberta government is shutting down the province\u2019s first-ever supervised drug consumption site.<\/p>\n<p>Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis said the Sheldon M. Chumir Centre in Calgary, as well as a mobile service in Lethbridge will be shuttered as the next step in the province\u2019s move to a recovery-oriented approach to addiction.<\/p>\n<p>Ellis said the funding for the two sites will be transitioned into different support services.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69bd8967017a0cb68332b7e3jpeg.jpg\" data-pswp- data-pswp-width=\"4000\" data-pswp-height=\"2633\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69bd8967017a0cb68332b7e3jpeg.jpg\" alt=\"A man waits to enter the Safeworks supervised consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in Calgary, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021.THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Jeff McIntosh\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA man waits to enter the Safeworks supervised consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre in Calgary, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021.THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Jeff McIntosh<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople will not be left without support,\u201d he told reporters in Calgary.<\/p>\n<p>Both sites are slated to close at the end of June.<\/p>\n<p>The Chumir Centre opened in 2017 in response to the ongoing opioid and overdose crisis, and six more sites opened in the following years across the province.<\/p>\n<p>The closures mean just three supervised consumption sites will remain in Alberta, with two being in Edmonton.<\/p>\n<p>Last year the province closed a site housed within the Royal Alexandra Hospital just north of Edmonton\u2019s downtown core, as well as a site in Red Deer.<\/p>\n<p>Ellis said supervised consumption sites were always meant to be a temporary response to the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTreatment options and recovery support then were far more limited than they are today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Addictions Minister Rick Wilson said the government doesn\u2019t currently have plans to close the remaining sites.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson said the additional treatment services and recovery facilities aren\u2019t quite where they need to be in the capital city to close down the sites quite yet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ll get to them, but we\u2019ve got some more work to do first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2013 The Alberta government is shutting down the province\u2019s first-ever supervised drug consumption site. Public Safety Minister&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-549689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}