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Jozaghi, Ehsan

While numerous studies on InSite (North America’s first supervised injection facility) have been published in leading international journals, little attention has been given to the potential role that InSite has played in changing the culture of drug use and transforming place in the Downtown Eastside. The present study was conducted to explore the transformative role of InSite in the lives of injection drug users (IDUs). Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with a purposively chosen sample of six IDUs who were attending InSite. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically using NVivo 8 software. Participants’ narratives indicate that attending InSite has had numerous positive effects in their lives, including changes in sharing behavior, improving health, establishing social support and saving their lives. Furthermore, attending InSite has been particularly effective in creating a unique microenvironment where IDUs are increasingly identifying InSite as their community center.

Downtown-Eastside (Vancouver, B.C.)

Text

2018-10-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67335

Jozaghi, E. (2012). "A little heaven in hell": The role of a supervised injection facility in transforming place. Urban Geography, 33(8), 1144-1162

Reviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/