Talk:Supervised injection site

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"Three of these analysts were well-published authors..." and other outsourced claims
Up until present, this paragraph was present in the article:


 * "The Drug Free Australia team included an epidemiologist, an addiction medicine practitioner, social researchers and a senior welfare practitioner. Three of these analysts were well-published authors of research papers in 20 different peer-reviewed medical journals. They released their findings to the media and to politicians, leading to a robust debate in Australia regarding the effectiveness of aspects of the Sydney MSIC."

Three sources was used. One was a blog reproducing an excerpt from Daily Telegraph. It could possibly be used for "The Drug Free Australia team included an epidemiologist, an addiction medicine practitioner, social researchers and a senior welfare practitioner" as it do state the authors credentials. However, then the blog then goes on to a letter to the editor by Ingrid van Beek criticizing that DFA's report is used to prove the failed nature of the experiment "despite a range of health professionals respectfully pointing out the various flaws in its [the DFA report] extrapolations over the past several years."

Another was ABC's Lingua Franca with a program called "Graeme Turner on the Rhetoric of Alan Jones" and reading trough the transcript I can't find anything that do corroborate anything in the Wikipedia article at all. The show goes on to criticize the rhetoric of Alan Jones, who is critical of Sydney MSIC. It is argued that his eight minutes of ranting over the theme that "politicians and academia [are] fabricating evidence to protect themselves, their reputations and their agenda" are a typical propaganda stunt and that it becomes hard, if not impossible for the defenders of Sydney MSIC that he later introduced to his show to make any valid point in that context.

The third was a parliament debate over Sydney MSIC. It was dubious at best and that it supports that claim that DFA's report was "leading to a robust debate" takes quite alot of imagination. It is true that DFA was qouted in the debate, but it is also true that DFA where said to convening "misinformation to political decision makers at this crucial time", that DFA is "peddling misinformation about the center" and that the center provides "information that refutes a number of claims by Drug Free Australia" and so on. To me, a debate where the material used by members come under such criticism can't be said to be robust.

So, the first sentence can stay, the second lacks support in the sources. The first leg of the third is supported by the hansart while the second leg is not. I have now edited the article to reflect this and notes that this article needs a through factcheck. Steinberger (talk) 19:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Steinberger, first an apology for performing an 'undo' which inadvertently removed a paragraph of yours elsewhere I had no quibbles with. Secondly, I am happy to go with two quotes to illustrate a robust debate in Australia. The blog, of course, is from Piers Akerman, one of the most read journalists in the country, and it is on the Daily Telegraph site, thus conforming with Wikipedia policy.  The Hansard debate does very well illustrate that there was a solid debate around Drug Free Australia's analysis, and all the mud-slinging that is done in Parliament by those politicians trying to defend their decision to open the Sydney injecting room does not for a moment change anything about my statement that it led to robust debate.110.175.209.31 (talk) 02:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * The hansart is WP:PRIMARY! WP:NOR state that sources, especially primary sources, should never be interpreted. They should be conservatively summarized, if used at all. Steinberger (talk) 08:49, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Steinberger, there is no interpretation of the use of Hansard. I have stated that Hansard shows a debate which is a descriptive statement, not an interpretive one.  Again you are trying too desperately stretching Wikipedia policy in ways that it does not intend, as per Literaturegeek's manifest concerns with your approach on the Harm Reduction Discussion page.  There is clearly no new conclusion drawn from Hansard or statement in Hansard that are somehow synthetic, as Literaturegeek had observed on a very similar matter on that same Discussion page.  And of course my description of there being a robust debate in Australia, for which the Hansard page is cited as one source of evidence, is a very conservative description of a primary source as you suggest Wikipedia would want.  If Hansard records debates, which it does, and there are two opposing views in this obvious debate which both mention Drug Free Australia's analysis, then this has been very conservatively but very truly described as a debate.  How could it be otherwise?  Minphie (talk) 01:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)


 * A debate, yes. But to call the debate a "robust" one is to evaluate it, that is to interpret and not to describe. To me a "robust debate" is a debate where the premises is agreed upon, that is not the case here, is it? So, it is not a robust debate and you are over-interpreting the source when getting to that conclusion, in the face of WP:NOR. Again. Steinberger (talk) 08:27, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

This article relies heavily on primary sources
The article relies heavily on the evaluations of MSIC. The problem is that they are WP:PRIMARY. EMCDDA have a systematic review from earlier this year. It is much better for usage as it is a true secondary source (and not questionable a bit, in difference to DFA's review). Steinberger (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Steinberger, I will take this preposterous claim as further evidence of tendentious editing. I cannot even give this claim the honor of clutching at straws, so ludicrous is the claim.  You know as well as I that Drug Free Australia's analysis conforms entirely with the statement by Wikipedia that "Secondary sources are second-hand accounts, at least one step removed from an event. They rely for their material on primary sources, often making analytic or evaluative claims about them."  You will find that the Drug Free analysis references, analyses and evaluates in every case, the data of the primary MSIC evaluations. This has more the appearance of game-playing aimed at keeping evidenced text off the SIS page, with a possible motivation of censorship.110.175.209.31 (talk) 02:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Read what I written at the top again. This is not about DFA, this is about the Official evaluations - they are WP:PRIMARY as they do not summarize studies, they are rather studies in themselves. If I were to assess DFA's review I would say that it comes somewhere inbetween a secondary and a primary source. Secondary as it relies on data from other sources, primary as its analysis is so novel and its conclusions are so very contrary to the one its primary sources presents. That said, DFA's review is questionable source as its reputation in terms of accuracy and factchecking is so bad - therefor it should not be used conservatively and only with attribution.
 * To me it is clear that you are the one engaging in WP:Tendentious editing. Steinberger (talk) 10:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Steinberger, there is no truth to your statement here. The Drug Free Australia analysis is, as already demonstrated, securely a secondary source as per my quote reproduced from the WP:NOR page. As stated it is a secondary 'analysis' and 'evaluation' of the primary sources, which are the government-funded evaluations of the MSIC. The DFA analysis covers many aspects of these government evaluations, showing the deficiencies and errors as any decent analysis of a very flawed government evaluation will.  You also record above a new allegation about accuracy and fact-checking with not a scrap of evidence to support this statement.  Wikipedia is not the place for unsubstantiated mud-slinging. And of course the DFA analysis has been used with attribution as per advice previously received.


 * It is important now that you come up with something to back your use of a palpably untrue statement by injecting room staff cited by NSW politician, Robyn Parker, who as we have already seen was very incorrect in her statements about Drug Free Australia figures (already demonstrated in this Discussion page) and could not have substantiated her statement if asked to. I have seen nothing from you which substantiates their clearly unsubstantiated claim.  You might do well to e-mail the MSIC and ask for a reference for this material.  You need to substantiate your assertion with something that shows it to be true and Drug Free Australia confirms that no such refutations of their work exist, only refutations by MSIC staff of their own 2003 evaluators' figures on heroin user numbers in Kings Cross.Minphie (talk) 00:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC) 00:24, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There is truth to my statement that the official evaluations are WP:PRIMARY. There is no truth to the fact that Parker et al not where specific. Do not insist on making that interpretation without explicit support in the sources. It does not matter that you tink otherwise, as demonstrated on this discussion page. Steinberger (talk) 15:53, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Addiction psycho-social rather than medical
I have reinstated sentences and citations removed by Ohiostandard who appears to have assumed that there is some kind of academic consensus that addiction is a medical issue, rather than a psycho-social one. There is no such consensus, and so Ohiostandard has no right to impose an individual belief or view on Wikipedia readers as authoritative.

Even more extraordinary is that the sentence and citation reinstated were not even remotely medical in any shape or form. European consumption rooms are not medical entities in any shape or form either, with not a nurse or a doctor to be found in most - they are a psycho-social intervention. The Sydney and Vancouver centres have medicalized one part of SIS operation, which is intervention in overdose events. In some there may be medical advice on injecting, but the rest of the intervention entails education and psycho-social supports and distribution of injecting paraphernalia. Such supports in a needle exchange setting are not perceived or promoted as medical in nature.Minphie (talk) 03:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have again reinstated citations and text related to the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice. It has been established elsewhere that the journal is most-definitely peer-reviewed, that it is treated as a reliable source for one of the most authoritative reviews on needle exchange (see Needle Exchange Talk) and that contributors to the journal share hundreds of PubMed articles between them, making it compliant as WP:MEDRS.  Added to this is that the relevant injecting room articles are largely not addressing medical data, but rather discussing data within a psycho-social context, which makes WP:MEDRS superfluous. Minphie (talk) 11:25, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It have been discussed several times and the consensus is not that the journal is peer-reviewed. Rather the opposite. However, some - not all - think that it could be used anyway in specific situations. Second, I tried to dubble-check your statements that the editorial board are represented with several articles indexed in PubMed and did not find any on the names I picked for a try. How exaclty did you find that they had authored hundreds articles between them? Steinberger (talk) 11:40, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Steinberger, go to this and type dupont rl into the search box under the Search = Pubmed option. Minphie (talk) 12:05, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have results. Checking at some though (voith ea[au]) they are all comments or letter to the editor, not studies. Steinberger (talk) 22:10, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Misrepresentation of sources
This is what was added "Real Women of Canada, a drug prevention group, has expressed concern that there had been increasing numbers of overdose deaths in Vancouver since 2003 despite the presence of the facility."

Let look at the ref http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/coroners/publications/docs/stats-illicitdrugdeaths-1997-2007.pdf 2007 56,54,55,67,51,49,90,87,108,191,140 1997 one has to look at the first page to find the date for each column and when one does one finds that illicit drug deaths rates have fallen dramatically in Vancouver. This is supported by the next ref page 46. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There is nothing resembling a misrepresentation of sources here. A correct reading of the numbers you have listed above do indeed show exactly what Real Women of Canada have asserted. Insite opened late 2003 with Vancouver on 49 deaths in 2002, increasing to 51 in 2003, and in the first full year after Insite opened deaths rose to 67 in 2004 and then tracked at higher mortality than 2002 from there on with 55 in 2005, 54 in 2006 and 56 in 2007. The crucial question is what impact Insite had. It certainly was not responsible for the lower mortality in 1999 as compared to 1998, nor for lower deaths in 2000 as compared to 1999. Likewise it is not responsible for the lowest levels in 2002. Real Women of Canada are quite correct - deaths have increased since 2002, the year before Insite was opened.Minphie (talk) 08:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Real Woman is not a trustworthy compiler of facts. They have an incentive not to scrutinize their analysis if it favors their view and that is why they and similar organizations never should be cited for facts on important public heath issues. The sources that we are to cite are the really reliable ones. As in this example where the Drug Prevention Network of Canada have made the same argument as Real Woman of Canada, from similar figures as it seems:


 * Steinberger (talk) 16:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Drug Free Australia
Steinberger, your stated rationale for deleting text about the Expert Advisory Committee observations on Insite's research is that Drug Free Australia is not a reliable source of critique for injecting rooms. But we have been through this all before. Go to and you will see that on 26 May 2010 you lodged on the WP:RSN this question "I wonder if papers and booklets published by Drug Free Australia, specifically "The Kings Cross Injecting Room - The Case for Closure" and "The Case for Closure: Detailed Evidence", can be considered reliable sources? Are they WP:SPS? Can they be used without attribution? Steinberger (talk) 10:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)" to which you got this reply:


 * We could use an article about this group to gather all the sources in one place. From reading [7][8][9][10], this seems to be an advocacy group, rather than a scientific research group. In fact it often criticizes scientists. It does seem to be cited in reliable sources, but always with attribution. That's what I'd recommend here. Not self published - clearly it's an established group, not just one person - but attribution required, and I'd recommend adding something like "advocacy group" or "lobbying group" by their name. --GRuban (talk) 12:21, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

If you go to the Drug Free Australia document cited in the text you seem keen to delete you will find on page 15 that Dr Robert DuPont, first President of the United States National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) (120+ Pubmed citations) worked with Australian epidemiologist Dr Joe Santamaria (20+ Pubmed journal articles) on the Lives Saved estimates for Drug Free Australia's 2010 analysis, which included Insite's estimates. So I have taken the advice above and added attribution to my text.

Also, you have blanked the text on the Expert Advisory Committee, which had nothing to do with your stated rationale. If it disappears again without excellent rationale for doing so I will take this issue to an Administrator. Minphie (talk) 04:04, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * On a topic like this we should be using source compliment with WP:MEDRS. Journals would need to be at least indexed on pubmed. Articles must be reviews, and peer reviewed. This is consensus. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * DocJames, as I have said above we have been through all this before 13 months ago on the Harm Reduction Talk page with precisely the same issues involved. LiteratureGeek advised at the time re Drug Free Australia's analysis of Safe Injection Sites see Section "Support for Safe Injection Sites a Minority World View", which was being disputed by Steinberger and sockpuppet Figs Might Ply, that,


 * Steinberger, this article is not a pure medical article, infact it is not even 50 percent medical article in my view. It has significant, political, social as well as medical implications and involvement. WP:MEDRS, only applies for when talking about specific medical statements.... Why is this article so biased in favour of harm reduction when there is extensive controversies throughout the world? Can anyone enlighten me? I do not know who is most or least to blame for this but the article is not balanced.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:11, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * REAL Women of Canada seems to be notable enough for a criticisms section as it has its own wikipedia article and is a non-governmental organisation (NGO), although admittedly I am sure better quality sources could be found. Drug Free Australia document seemed comprehensive and from my brief look the organisation seems to be notable. This source, is a government source but was part of the revert, certainly a reliable source for a criticisms section. This source, is another reliable source but was also reverted. I have got about half way through reading the large revert of text you performed and much of it seemed to be fairly cited. For example, one source did say it costs $3,000,000 per year for their injection room and they also estimated that they save just one life per year. That is a huge amount of money and not statistically significant outcome, 1 life saved, a very valid criticism, why did you revert it? It was not WP:SYN or original research and Health Canada is not a partisan source as claimed. Almost all sources it can be argued are partisan, the idea of WP:NPOV is to report all of the notable viewpoints and allow the facts to speak for themselves. I could think of a lot of drug and alcohol services who could do immense benefit to society with 3 million dollars.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 12:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You should not be mass reverting these content additions but rather if other views exist then add them for balance. If the content section gets too big then we can always split it off into a new article called harm reduction controversy.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 12:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There is absolutely no reason to be reverting text that is evidenced and from reliable sources as defined above. Again, you will have seen that there is no possible rationale for excluding Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice as well, seeing as an e-mail from the Editor has been reproduced categorically stating the journal is peer-reviewed, along with her e-mail address and the request that she be contacted directly by anyone wanting to revert text on that basis so they can confirm it for themselves. Given the issues discussed above there is no justifiable rationale for reverting text for this article. Minphie (talk) 21:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Drug Free Australia is not a reliable source; it is one of the most biased and unscientific (I was going to point out their frequent denigration of science and scientists, but I see it's already been mentioned above) groups I have seen permitted as a reference on an article of any importance. Just to point out one issue, their comparison of Sydney's MSIC's rate of overdose (96 per 10,000 injections) with the beyond-absurd rate of overdose they cite in comparison (2 per 10,000) doesn't stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. The global average of overdose mortality per year of daily heroin users is 2%; for their figure to be accurate, those injecting heroin outside of the MSIC would have to be injecting 100 times a day. One can imagine they'd hardly have time for anything else, not to mention some very sore arms and, considering the retail price of heroin in Australia, they'd all have to be billionaires! As for my esteemed friend above complaining about the supposed pro-Harm Reduction slant of the article - this is Wikipedia, not the BBC. Articles do have to be balanced when there is indeed serious disagreement in the scientific community; however, the Harm Reduction vs. the continuum between the abstinence-only and fact-free drivel of the American religious right on one end, and the kill-all-users approach of Duterte on the other debate was settled long ago by anyone with any serious scientific rigour. Suggesting that we should be both-sidesing this debate is akin to suggesting the same about man-made climate change, or better yet, putting a section on the Earth and Planet pages acknowledging the "controversy" between the rest of us and the flat-Earthers. I strongly assert that the "Site experience of overdose" section be removed as inaccurate and misleading. Khardankov (talk) 13:03, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

JGDPP still isn't a reliable or admissible source
Minphie, I'm going to try to explain this as clearly as possible, one last time. If someone puts up a web site and calls it a medical journal it's up to the medical research community to decide whether it is one or not. It's not up to politicians to make that determination, nor to governments or quasi-governmental bodies (so subject to political influences), nor to any kind of advocacy group. It's up to the medical research community.

The medical research community doesn't mail in ballots to make that determination, and it doesn't get on a massive conference call and debate the issue. It votes by citing the articles in the candidate publication... or in the case of the so-called Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice it votes by not citing its articles.

Go read about the standard metrics that are used to quantify this "voting by citations" process: impact factor or SCImago Journal Rank, h-index, and about citation indexing databases. I'll even point you toward an interface that accesses Scopus to provide citation metrics for JGDPP; it's here. Study that target page carefully and then come back here and tell me how many times it says any article in JGDPP has been cited by papers written by wholly independent researchers publishing in legitimate journals. Hint, look for the number "1" in the panel at the left of the screen when you scroll down. That's right: The Scopus citation database says JGDPP has been cited by a legitimate academic publication exactly one time since they began indexing it in January, 2009.

I couldn't find any citation database provider besides Scopus that bothers to index JGDPP; Thomson-Reuters doesn't, PubMed doesn't, & etc. ( If I didn't make it clear before, the Scimagojr user interface I pointed you to above employs Scopus data as the back end. ) But since Scopus only began indexing the publication on January 1, 2009, it makes sense to use Google Scholar to try to catch any citations to JGDPP that might have been made in legitimate journals from 2007, when the JGDPP began, through the end of 2008. That's a somewhat labor-intensive process; but it's made easier by the fact that Google Scholar's article ranking and selection algorithm returns only eight JGDPP articles at the time I'm writing this. I presume that's because Google's algorithm is excluding JGDPP papers that aren't cited by other academic publications unless they have some other claim to fame, as the "HOPE" "article" does, btw. In other words, I presume Google Scholar doesn't recognize content on the pages of unknown web sites as being an academic paper unless what looks like e.g. an article title appears in some fairly standard citation format on a foreign web site, or unless the page reaches salience by being the target of links from legitimate academic or reference sites.

But look! Google Scholar's result set for JGDPP shows that those eight articles have a grand total of 17 citations among them. That's not wholly pathetic, since JGDPP has only published something like (iirc my count correctly) 100 articles since it began in 2007, right? Well, no. Unless Google Scholar's algorithm missed some additional JGDPP papers that actually were cited by other journals, that result of 17 cites listed really is pathetic.

Why? Because unlike the very sophisticated Scopus citation indexing database, which found JGDPP was cited only once in the two year interval between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010, Google Scholar pulls in a great deal of "chaff" with the "wheat". You have to actually dig into the details and examine each of those 17 entries individually to weed out the self-citations, the citations that appear in self-published works, the citations in prestigious journals that were made only to disparage the JGDPP, & etc.

Completion of that somewhat laborious process confirms that the Scopus results for the two-year interval since the database began indexing JGDPP were not a mistake. Scopus found JGDPP had been cited only once during those two years. Likewise, and assuming the Google Scholar result set covers all 4+ years JGDPP has been in existence, all but two of Google Scholar's 17 candidate citations evaporate when you examine them. So unless there's been some monumental error in the review process I've described here, which I rather doubt, '''JGDPP appears to have been cited by the legitimate academic community just twice over its entire publication history. That's it, that's the total for the entire "journal".''' And since I don't have ready access to the full text of the source documents where those two citations of JGDPP occur, it's a possibility that even those two citations were made to only to disparage the publication.

The Google Scholar entry for the Kall "review" article about needle exchange programmes and HIV that you were championing a short while ago at RSN, for example, shows 4 citations at the time I'm writing this. But when you look just a little more closely at the details of those 4 you see that in one Kall is citing herself, in another Kall's JGDPP editor, Eric Voth, is citing Kall in one of his ubiquitous letters to the editors of legitimate publications, one is cited merely to repudiate Kall, and the last candidate citation is just a duplicate "come on" page-not-found link that appears to be gaming Google's search algorithm to drive traffic to a paywalled site. Of the four candidate citations Google Scholar returned, not one confers the least shadow of legitimacy.

If you're interested in disputing any of these data or the conclusions that follow from it, Minphie, please don't try to do that with a wall of arguments. Just come back here with some reasonable list of legitimate, independent, cites to JGDPP that occur in mainstream, well-accepted journals. We'll have nothing more to talk about re JGDPP as an admissible source if you can't do that. I'll be quite surprised if you can, though: Based on what I've been able to determine, it appears to me that you're scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel by trying to push opinions from this advocacy publication onto Wikipedia. Since the legitimate academic community takes no notice of JGDPP except to criticize it, there's certainly no reason that Wikipedia articles should take it seriously or admit it to the discussion either.

If the conclusions you're so eager to promote here are correct, JGDPP won't have a corner on the market. The same conclusions will also appear in articles published by legitimate, established, respected journals, and you'll need to find them. But out of all the possible sources available to Wikipedia, there's absolutely no reason anyone here should resort to dragging in anything published by JGDPP.

Finally, and for the last time, legitimate medical journals: (1) Don't serve as a captive publication outlet for their controlling editors and organizational members (e.g. Voth and Kall, respectively ); (2) Do commit themselves to scientific neutrality rather than to advocacy; (3) Don't put up token submission instructions and claims to peer-review only because they've been publicly criticized for lacking those niceties, nor do they do so only years after their inception, and (4) Do receive supportiing citations in other legitimate medical journals, rather than just being cited to be disparaged.

By the way, you said at RSN recently that Eric A. Voth who founded one of JGDPP's out-of-thin air antecedents and was the publications first Chief Editor, has 25+ papers on PubMed. He doesn't; you have to look at the details. Two-thirds of his PubMed list of 25 articles aren't articles at all; they're just very brief letters to the editor criticizing other people's articles from a drug interdiction POV. ( He must have written hundreds of such letters to get so many published. ) He's first or sole author on just six actual papers, and that includes two published in 1992 in Kansas Medicine. He's also listed as second author on three more papers. None of his papers comprise any kind of scientific experiment at all, incidentally; they're all editorial commentary or practice surveys or reviews of other's work. Let me know if you'd like the actual list.

Oh, and I'm reverting your most recent restoration of content from Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice. If you want to post any of the conclusions it presents you'll have to find them in a legitimate journal, one that the medical research community accepts. You've singlehandedly drained far too much time and attention from editors here by unilaterally insisting on your POV; I for one not will allow you to take up any more of my time in that way. If we need to escalate this, as you intimated above, then so be it. – OhioStandard  (talk) 10:03, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * OhioStandard, the comments attributed to the university academic Dr Garth Davies on the SIS page meet all the requirements of deriving from a reliable source. The cited report by Davies is one of four which was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and which verifiably entered the public arena via the RCMP’s submission of this and an alternate Insite report by another academic, Dr Colin Mangham, to the Canadian government, which then became the academic basis of the government’s opposition to Insite. Your concerns above about the JGDPP are only incidental to the issue of whether Davies’ or Mangham’s reports are reliable sources, because their history, importance and academic sourcing already qualifies them as reliable sources for Wikipedia. The fact that these reports appear a year later in a peer-reviewed journal is of no import to their already established nature as sources.


 * Not that this is now important, but issue can be taken with your text above regarding the JGDPP. Over at the Needle-exchange programme discussion page we previously clarified that the latest review of needle exchange effectiveness reviews relies on a JGDPP review as one of its most rigorous reviews reviewed (if you understand the double language of a ‘review of reviews’). In other words the JGDPP review is a central review. And there are other citations of JGDPP in the literature, such as here or here or here (these are just citations for Garth Davies only, not for other articles in the journal). Nor does the Wikipedia descriptions of what constitutes a reliable source require your hierarchy of citation frequency in other sources, so this needs to be put aside. The requirement is that sources be published, ‘in print or online’ by reliable authors and peer-reviewed (and even this is not absolute). Checks on other citations are to ensure that the publication is mainstream, but there is no hierarchy of citations frequency spoken of.


 * And as I have previously stated, all of these JGDPP considerations are irrelevant because the Davies report is an RCMP given to the Canadian government, and relates to its importance in the debate on injecting rooms as it relates to the Canadian government’s use of the report in their deliberations. Minphie (talk) 00:46, 11 July 2011 (UTC)


 * DocJames, I have dealt with your fallacious consensus before over on the Insite Talk page. If there was a consensus between us we would not be in dispute. It is precisely because we are in dispute (not consensus) the issue of the reliability of the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice has been taken THREE times to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard and there it has been found to be a reliable source on two occasions.


 * The first commenced 9 March 2011 here has no consensus with the only third-party input apart from those in the dispute coming from ItsmeJudith and TimidGuy.  Neither agreed, with TimidGuy suggesting that “It seems like a reliable source” and “I don't see why this source couldn't be used in WP” while ItsmeJudith said “It doesn't look like a normal academic journal because it isn't published by one of the publishing houses that handle journals”.  The only other inputs were myself and Steinberger, the disputants. And of course, in reply to ItsmeJudith I would have to assert that her/his objection does not even match Wikipedia's Reliable Sources criteria (which considers online as fine so long as it is demonstrably mainstream and peer-reviewed). Where on the Reliable sources page does it limit reliable sources to ItsmeJudith's criteria.
 * The second commenced 5 June 2011 had only the third-party input of TimidGuy.  OhioStandard was not a disinterested third-party by any call, being one of the earlier disputants, who blanked text citing a JGDPP article first on 22 March 2011 here. (This appears to have happened after OhioStandard discovered that the Drug Free America Foundation has many registered organisational entities,[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Journal_of_Global_Drug_Policy_and_Practice#This_.22journal.22_a_small_part_of_major_astroturfing_of_international_drug_policy here] which OhioStandard read as an attempt to conceal or deceive, rather than understanding that a multitude of corporate entities operate with an even greater multitude of sub-entities for the sake of utility with no intention to deceive simply because they are all traceable. Organisations who see Drug Free America as ideologically opposite could very quickly be shown to have as many or significantly more sub-entities). Then on 29 May, 6 days before the Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion, OhioStandard again blanked text citing a JGDPP article here on precisely the same false rationale as used by DocJames and Steinberger.  So there can be no argument that the only third-party entered on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard’s June 5 request had only positive comment by TimidGuy, that “I don't know of a guideline that would proscribe it.” Certainly no negative consensus here.
 * The third commenced 8 June contained third-party input affirming the journal as a reliable source for the issue discussed, which lead to the resolution of the needle exchange programme page’s use of an article in the JGDPP which was used by the Palmateer review of reviews team in the European Monitoring Centre Monograph on Harm Reduction.


 * This makes the third party input 2-0 in favour of JGDPP reliability for the three discussions. If anyone wants to revert the JGDPP text after this I suggest they remember that we are in dispute, there is no consensus, and that perhaps best take the issue to the next level in dispute resolution, which could be mediation or arbitration (I don't have enough Wikipedia experience to know which is best but suspect mediation would fail, necessitating arbitration of this issue). And as said before, the appeal to WP:MEDRS has absolutely no place in this discussion, because the sentence specifically describing Mangham’s criticisms are about law and order which is not remotely medical. I have pointed out a number of times before that addiction is universally considered to be chiefly psycho-social, therefore issues within that domain, ie law and order or rehab, are not adjudicated by medical research or commentary.  And as it happens, the appeal to WP:MEDRS has already been shown here to be without any foundation anyway, so I would expect no more use of this false rationale. Minphie (talk) 12:30, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

It's amazes me that you have the audacity to mention "consensus", Minphie. Your single purpose on Wikipedia has been to single-handedly crusade against consensus by pushing highly POV-driven war-on-drugs sources into our articles on needle-exchange programs.

The only other thing I'll respond to in your comments above is your apparent assertion that financial backing by the RCMP or mention by some conservative government politico magically makes a source reliable. You might as well argue that JGDPP is a reliable source because it was kicked off by funding from an utterly partisan and hugely corrupt juvenile programs division of the Bush-era Department of Justice. The self-proclaimed "journal" is simply propaganda. Everyone besides you knows it, including the entire academic community.

So for the very last time, now, you need to immediately stop trying to push Drug Free America Foundation propaganda from their JGDPP astroturf project into our articles. If you continue to try to circumvent the overwhelming consensus among the many editors who've reverted you over and over again, and have for so very long paid you the courtesy of answering your endlessly-repeated talk-page arguments, you'll leave your fellow editors with no option but to finally seek to have you banned from editing articles that have anything at all to do with drugs. – OhioStandard  (talk) 00:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would strongly support a complete topic area ban for Minphie. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * OhioStandard, DocJames, Steinberger, I believe that we are at a place where this content dispute needs the input of other parties beyond the neutral third party comment previously requested and received on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. DocJames, you appear ready to take action and this may be a possible way ahead, so invite you to take it. I certainly feel that mediation/arbitration of the issue is the next step according to what I see in the dispute resolution policies. I have not altered text on the pages with disputed text, but if you have not initiated a further step in dispute resolution in the next few days then I will be happy to initiate it.


 * OhioStandard, with respect, I will make some comments about what you have said immediately above. I believe that if you e-mail Calvina Fay who heads up the Drug Free America Foundation, and ask her whether my contributions to Wikipedia on drug policy are a fair and unbiased rendering of the views of the world's drug prevention organizations, I feel confident that she will confirm that I have accurately portrayed them on Wikipedia, with no original thoughts of my own. I must wonder why you feel that unquestionably mainstream organizations such as Drug Free America, Real Women of Canada, Drug Prevention Network of Canada and Drug Free Australia are somehow now for Wikipedia sinister fringe entities that must be silenced or banned from Wikipedia. And I wonder why you believe that Wikipedia must stifle and ban anything that had anything to do with the Bush-era in US politics. Is Wikipedia party political now? And is Wikipedia content now governed by notions of undemonstrated guilt by association? I had rather thought that Wikipedia was about allowing both sides of the drug policy debate held by mainstream entities to speak for themselves, and allow the Wikipedia reader to decide for themselves. Minphie (talk) 08:10, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

minphie just mellow out man. wikipedia is an encyclopedia edited by the people, the people have spoken. its not about being partisan its about facts, and fact is bush faked a lot of facts, thats why wikipedia is distanced from his lies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.23.9.22 (talk) 03:43, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Re-write
I've had a read of the article history and the Talk page. I'd like to suggest this article be rewritten- the coherency of the current article seems to suffer from endless minor edits and and compromises. My main points are that the evaluation section seems way too long, all those headings could be condensed into a sentence or two, and that the article could have a more narrative flow. Are there any users who object to this suggestion? --Dasket (talk) 10:25, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I too think that the evaluations section is to long, so agree. And if you have not seen it, the reliability of "Drug Free Australia"-material have been discussed at RSN and the organisation was not considered reliable enough to be cited for facts (but may, if considered a notable enough participator in the public discussions, be cited for its own opinions).  Steinberger (talk) 15:21, 14 June 2012 (UTC)


 * With respect, Dasket, your suggestion raises some concerns for me. This article has been very hotly contested for years, with literally every sentence the result of compromise, and it seems unusual that a two-day old account would show up to suggest a rewrite. I'll take my concerns to your talk page, however. --OhioStandard (talk) 19:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I've responded on my talk page to your concerns. Could we talk about changing this article? I've read some of the discussion that's gone on about it, and it seems to me that editor minphie has forced the current convoluted version of the article by being an argumentative, uncooperative dogmatist. I see minphie hasn't been blocked but the consensus seems to be that they work for/are infatuated with Drug Free Australia and are not seeking consensus/using good evidence. Do they need to be included in future discussion about the article if they continue to pursue fringe/unverifiable theories about the subject? --Dasket (talk) 11:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, let's see what arguments, if any, he makes in further discussions. Steinberger (talk) 12:52, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Coming in cold, it looks like he took flight for the hills as soon as a possible connection with DFA was suggested. How long is it considered polite to wait? --Dasket (talk) 13:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, you mean that we should wait for his input before any changes? That is not necessary per WP:BRD-cycle. If he objects however, we can't say beforehand that we are to ignore him. Steinberger (talk) 14:41, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Statistics for people kicking the habit through these sites
There's a number cited (apparently disputed) about how many people have been referred to detox programs, but I'm not seeing many numbers about how many people are confirmed to have kicked the habit of whatever drug they're on from using an injection site. The numbers for ODs and HIV infection are important but the assumption is most of these people because they don't die or get sicker will continue using. Are there any numbers to show, for example, X% of Insite users in 2014 later indicated they were drug-free after being referred to a program directly due to Insite? 68.146.52.234 (talk) 19:11, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2016
Please change to the second citation. The first version is improperly cited and is preventing it from being collected by citation analysis algorithm.

McNeil, R; et al. (13 March 2014). "Impact of supervised drug consumption services on access to and engagement with care at a palliative and supportive care facility for people living with HIV/AIDS: a qualitative study". Journal of the International AIDS Society 17.

1738details (talk) 13:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Where in the article is the citation that needs to be changed? clpo13(talk) 17:44, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Canadian supervised injection sites
It should be noted that Toronto is moving forward with the installation of three injection sites within the city, provoked by the success of InSite in Vancouver. As of this writing, Toronto City Council has approved Board of Health supervised injection site recommendations (36 in favour, three against). Given the number of supervised injection sites currently operating in Canada and the world, these additions are highly significant. Debasedhero (talk) 16:36, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Claim: Safe injection sites in Vancouver, Canada have proven to be beneficial by a decrease in drug related overdoses, a reduction in syringe sharing and has seen an increase in addiction treatment and recovery. Evidence: 35% decrease in overdoses after opening the first Vancouver site in 2003. Evidence: A second site opened in Vancouver in 2016 and the Federal Prime Minister of Health has commended these sites for saving “countless lives”. Discussion: This subtopic supports my thesis statement because it has solid facts showing that instead of promoting drug use, like some believe, these sites have proven to benefit the population using these sites, whether that is through preventing overdose, promoting treatment or keeping dirty needles off of the street. 73.229.20.33 (talk) Sara Olson, 23:54, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Impacts on surrounding real estate price?
This needs to be discussed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.98.51.36 (talk) 10:05, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how this would be relevant at all in discussions. Also, considering how real estate prices are a complex collection of impacts and market forces, how would you control for it? You can really only show a price going up, or a price going down, but how to correlate it directly to environment is extremely difficult.

15:33, 10 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.219.56.130 (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 June 2017
On this page about Supervised Injection Sites, under the first heading OPERATING FACILITIES, the last sentence is unsourced and reads "In April 2016, the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program opened the 'Supportive Place for Observation and Treatment' or 'SPOT'." While this is technically accurate (SPOT did open last April), it is misleading. SPOT is NOT a supervised injection facility. I propose removing this sentence entirely, as it does not pertain to the page topic.

How do I know all this? I am a physician at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless. I work in SPOT. I know of what I speak! Supervised injection is not legal anywhere in the United States (yet), and is definitely not tolerated in SPOT. There was some misleading coverage in the news last year when we opened SPOT, and it made its way onto this page. I am happy to clarify further if needed.

Thank you very much, Gabriel Wishik, MD, MPH Boston Healthcare for the Homeless program Gwishik (talk) 23:35, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:13, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit request on 17 October 2017
We propose to add a policy section to the article. We will be focusing on section AB 186 in particular. We will detail the background and arguments behind this proposal. Our group will have more information on this once we meet with our district representative Scott Weiner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DNf999 (talk • contribs) 04:40, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Brianmaucsf (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2017 (UTC)== Are the edits formatted consistent with Wikipedia’s manual of style? If not, specify… ==

I thought that the edits made by the group were very high quality and in depth. It looks like a lot of research was done to find the exact relevant bills and policies in place that are related to their topic. It was a well organized, brief timeline of events describing the supervised injection site policy progress in San Francisco.

As a general rule of thumb, Wikipedia encourages a simple writing style with the goal of being as easy to understand as possible. In the Supervised injection site wikipedia article, I thought that something that could be improved was to add some subtext under the title heading of Proposed Policies because jumping straight into the San Francisco section without any lead section writing can be confusing for some readers. Other than that, all of the other style elements seem consistent with the Wikipedia manual of style. The grammar, organization, and spelling is all appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianmaucsf (talk • contribs) 23:59, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Is there any evidence of plagiarism or copyright violation? Based on comparing what was reported on the Wiki article and its corresponding sources-- I do not see evidence of plagiarism or copyright violation. However, I notice that some of the statistics presented are worded a bit similarly to its source, but I understand there are very, very limited ways of wording statistics in a way that is still accurate with its original source. For example you stated, “The Department of Public Health estimates that 22,500 people in San Francisco inject drugs, with over 100 overdose deaths due to injected drugs a year.” Compared to the original source, “The Department of Public Health estimates the City is home to some 22,500 people who inject drugs and experience over 100 injected drug overdose deaths a year."(sfdph.org) Possibly reword further to say something like, “According to the Department of Public Health, it is estimated to be about 22,500 people in San Francisco who inject drugs and projected more than 100 injectible drug overdoses a year.” Drhyoo (talk) 07:59, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

CP133 2018 Group 25 Proposed Edits
A detail description of the Media video

Background of the bill/History of bill/How it started

Impact of the bill on SF community - reference research articles Include statistics that are specific to the drug usage population in San Francisco Success/failure of current needle exchange programs created to remedy the needle disposal and open drug usage issue Dangers posed by the status quo → Where are the needles being disposed of now? Current issues and how the bill can resolve them →

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/8/22/17768842/sf-senate-safe-injection-ab-186 https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/California-bill-to-let-SF-open-safe-13270836.php

Current progression of the bill - where is it now, where it’s headed in the future — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amendala (talk • contribs) 04:43, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Does the draft submission reflect a neutral point of view? If not, specify…
The draft submission seems to reflect a neutral point of view. While the first paragraph could be misconstrued as persuasive, after reading it more than once, I believe it provides the background necessary to understand the issue of the opioid epidemic, and why San Francisco has been particularly involved with this issue. The paragraphs that follow serve to provide information with regards to the legislative efforts relevant in the city, and do not attempt to support a particular side of the issue. Great job staying neutral and providing important information!Evelyn.coria (talk) 16:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Are the edits formatted consistent with Wikipedia’s manual of style? If not, specify…
I thought that the edits made by the group were very high quality and in depth. It looks like a lot of research was done to find the exact relevant bills and policies in place that are related to their topic. It was a well organized, brief timeline of events describing the supervised injection site policy progress in San Francisco.

As a general rule of thumb, Wikipedia encourages a simple writing style with the goal of being as easy to understand as possible. In the Supervised injection site wikipedia article, I thought that something that could be improved was to add some subtext under the title heading of Proposed Policies because jumping straight into the San Francisco section without any lead section writing can be confusing for some readers. Other than that, all of the other style elements seem consistent with the Wikipedia manual of style. The grammar, organization, and spelling is all appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianmaucsf (talk • contribs) 18:39, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Are the points included verifiable with cited secondary sources that are freely available? If not, specify…
Yes, the edits made to the Wiki page are verifiable with cited secondary sources. Each statistic and number mentioned in a sentence is cited, and the citations are from reputable sources such as the CDC and SF Department of Public Health. The sources are also freely available and did not require any membership or account sign up to view. Overall, the number and quality of citations greatly lends to the credibility of the edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:4100:B8DF:805A:158E:DA7B:5BF6 (talk) 02:16, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Schoi0412 (talk) 19:51, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Response to Peer Review
We would like to thank our colleagues for all their feedback. As per the suggestion regarding Wikipedia’s manual of style, we have added a brief introduction before jumping into the San Francisco subsection of Proposed Policies to make it flow smoother and decrease possible confusion.Jessica Tran (talk) 06:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

In addition, two sugguestions were also made regarding the wording of one sentence reference stats, as well as the first sentence not sounding neutral. Regarding the wording of the stats statement, as sugguested the wording was updated from “The Department of Public Health estimates that 22,500 people in San Francisco inject drugs, with over 100 overdose deaths due to injected drugs a year.” to “According to the Department of Public Health, it is estimated to be about 22,500 people in San Francisco who inject drugs and projected more than 100 injectible drug overdoses a year.” Regarding the non neutrality of the first sentance,   Since it was difficult to re-word the sentance we thought it was best to remove the sentance. This still maintained the flow and content of the section. NicholsKing4 (talk) 15:13, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Seattle safe injection site, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/awash-in-overdoses-seattle-creates-safe-sites-for-addicts-to-inject-illegal-drugs/2017/01/27/ddc58842-e415-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?utm_term=.d6c31913252b Egberts (talk) 23:30, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

In this article, Sydney should be followed by Australia.
I made an edit on this page, adding "Australia" after "Sydney", and this was reverted, with the question "Why does Sydney need a country and New York not?", posted by HiLo48. My reasoning for the edit is that it's clear to anyone which New York City is being referred to, as there is only one New York City (to my knowledge), and just about anyone is aware that it's located in the USA. As for Sydney, Australia, even though it's likely the most common and prominent place of that name, there are other Sydneys/Sidneys, such as Sidney, Victoria, Canada (yes, the spelling is different, but that is a difference which some people may overlook), and the transition within one sentence from North America to Australia may not be immediately obvious to some readers. For this reason, I think my edit should remain. werewolf (talk) 23:56, 29 June 2018 (UTC)


 * One of Wikipedia's big biases is US-centrism. Having a single sentence where one city is tagged with its country and the other, the American one, is not, is a perfect example. HiLo48 (talk) 00:21, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

I do think that your point has merit, and Wikipedia seems to have a US-centric bias, but this in no way addresses the merits of the point I have made, nor does it necessarily justify reverting my edit if it is in fact warranted for the sake of reading clarity. Additionally, the fact that you are Australian would suggest that you yourself have a bias, which may affect your decision to revert my edit. Please address the point I've made, otherwise leave my edit as it is. werewolf (talk) 03:30, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

HiLo48, werewolf (talk) 01:40, 4 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Sadly, nobody else seems interested in this matter. I surrender, though it seems clumsy to list two significant cities, and list the country for one but not the other. HiLo48 (talk) 02:00, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I get what you're saying, and I agree that it seems clumsy, but can you see how it might avoid confusion for some readers? werewolf (talk) 15:08, 4 July 2018 (UTC)


 * There must be thousands of articles where American places are mentioned without any such clarity being provided. HiLo48 (talk) 22:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Sydney is a major world city, and no more needs the ", Australia" suffix than Tokyo, London, Moscow or Paris need their respective countries. As far as Australian cities go, Sydney and Melbourne, stand out as global cities that need no national identification; even in the latter case, nobody in their right mind would assume "Melbourne" without qualification would refer to Melbourne, Florida rather than Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. One could make a strong argument for including Brisbane in that list. The point above about addressing Wikipedia's US-centrism is pertinent here - articles routinely list far less important cities that happen to be in the US without so much as their state suffix; important world cities need no qualification, especially when the cities are usually hotlinked and anyone lacking the requisite geographical knowledge can simply click to find out more (or even hover over the link) - one of the wonders of Wikipedia! Khardankov (talk) 13:31, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Possible additions to 'Impact on community levels of overdose'
SIFs users are 30 percent more likely to enter drug cessation programs then non-SIF users.

In the first two years after Vancouver's SIF opened, the surrounding area had 35 percent fewer overdose deaths with no rise in crime.

In Vancouver, BC after a SIF was introduced the overdose death rate fell from 253 per 100,000 all the way to 165 per 100,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaredmarvel (talk • contribs) 16:05, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

a good study
Here is a good study that was recently published. Might be worth adding to external links. --101.173.78.130 (talk) 21:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Group 16 Peer Review
1) Does the draft submission reflect a neutral point of view? if not, specify... I believe that this article has reflected a neutral point of view. There was not much biased or persuasion but in the first sentence of operating facilities, they used the word "disparagingly" which can give off a negative connotation for the "shooting galleries." In trying to maintain a neutral POV, it would be best to avoid words that negatively describes an object. Alison.chen (talk) 08:25, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

2) Are the points included verifiable with cited secondary sources that are freely available? if not, specify... Yes the sources are properly cited and are freely available to public. There is no need to sign up for membership. Sources that the group has added were reputable and supported the context. One thing they can improve the article on is to consolidate all the same sources. I figured out citation #40-42, #29-31 are the same and they can fix the citation by using the same number for those. In addition, another article was used numerous times (#19,21,23,34,35,37,38,39,50,51,56,64,67-69,79) and every time was cited as a new article. I realized these were done by other people editing the article, but the group can work on fixing that. -HosnaT   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hosnat (talk • Hosnat (talk) 00:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

3) Are the edits formatted consistent with Wikipedia's annual of style? if not, specify... Syntax, grammar, and punctuation definitely followed Wikipedia's manual of style. The task of finding any type of errors, awkward wording, of fragmented writing actually became daunting. The writing is also easy to understand, with little usage of jargon. There isn't much to critique. Overall, very nice edits, everyone! Dlarrysa (talk) 22:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

4) Is there any evidence of plagiarism or copying violation? if yes, specify...

- After copying and pasting many passages from all of the student editors in the google search engine I did not find signs of plagiarism. I used this method as per Wikipedias instruction on their Wikipedia:Plagarism page. I also copy and pasted full sections into a plagiarism detector and there was no plagiarism. Good job guys!- Bianca Rojo

Group 21 Peer Review
1. Does the draft submission reflect a neutral point of view? If not, specify…

I do believe that in general the article (and new edits made) use neutral language; however, the lead of the article (first paragraph) appears to use some terminology that may seem somewhat harsh towards the opioid-abuse population, such as "nuisance". Other than that, the article was able to maintain perspective that was aimed towards providing information about supervised injection sites without showing any sort of bias or persuasion. Tandenise (talk) 18:08, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

2. Are the points included verifiable with cited secondary sources that are freely available? If not, specify… — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arh286 (talk • contribs) 20:22, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes these points are verifiable with cited, freely available sources. Sources 87 and 88 under the San Francisco heading look like the same source and they were included under two citation numbers. The only thing that still needs a source is the latest progress of AB186 (Sept. 30, 2018), but you have done a good job of specifying that a citation is still needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arh286 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

3. Are the edits formatted consistent with Wikipedia's annual of style? if not, specify... The editors' grammar and punctuation follow Wikipedia's Manual of Style. However for capitalization there were some inconsistencies. For example if "Assembly member" and "City departments" are used as title's or proper nouns, according to the Manual of Style, the entire title or proper noun should be capitalized for consistency (i.e. "Assembly Member" and "City Departments"). Other than that minor detail, everything else was easy to read and flowed very well. Job well done.Bchhan (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

4. Is there any evidence of plagiarism or copywright violation? If yes specify... I thoroughly reviewed the literature cited in the sections posted by the group, copy and pasted into google a few phrases and used a plagiarism checker, and I haven't seen any blaring instances of plagiarism. I would advise the group to thoroughly review the document to verify that they have adequately paraphrased and cited all of their sources. I did note an instance of a word that I believe was meant to be "'proper' disposal" instead of "proposal disposal" in the San Francisco section. ikozache — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ikozache (talk • contribs) 05:23, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Propose changing title to - Consumption Site - or Supervised Consumption Facility
I would like to propose that the title be changed to - Overdose Consumption Site - or Supervised Consumption Facilities - as it is the term being more accepted by the public, used by government, policy advocates and medical journals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catfish2008 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I suggested the change also on Wikiprojects medicine and there's a general support for the change, but the title needs to be globally representative and what to change it is still not firm. Graywalls (talk) 23:16, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Removed section on Drug Free Australia
I have removed a large section discussing claims by Drug Free Australia, because the section was almost entirely sourced to primary sources, such as pamphlets and documents published by Drug Free Australia, and a magazine article written by Gary Christian, the honorary secretary for Drug Free Australia. These are obviously not independent reliable sources, and they particularly cannot allow us to make the wild claims (Drug Free Australia has documented its allegation that the Sydney injecting room's evaluations were demonstrably the production of partisan sympathizers and colleagues of injecting room staff, and the absurd conspiratorial reference to climate change denial) which are contained in the section. Perhaps there is something to be written about the Sydney supervised injection sites, but this isn't it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:46, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

We also need to remove primary source references to things from the harm reduction related organizations, as well as the WP:OR based statements drawn up by concatenating primary source government documents and proceedings to speak favorably of SIS. Graywalls (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That may be so. But we absolutely cannot use a column written by an officer of Drug Free Australia to state that "evaluations were demonstrably the production of partisan sympathizers." That is right out. 100% unacceptable. We need reliable secondary sources to make claims of wrongdoing or research misconduct. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:02, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Somehow this has returned, just with the title "Site experience of overdose", perhaps in a lazy attempt to obfuscate the fact that it is nothing more than pro-drug-war propaganda from a partisan and fact-free organisation. I will propose blanking. Khardankov (talk) 13:35, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

News reporter observation
In this edit, field observations and interviews conducted by a reputable media source who visited Canada from Philadelphia was removed. Primary source, such as as an uninvolved journalist's observations in non-partisan manners shouldn't be a problem. However, the article contains first hand reporting from involved parties, like the various consumption sites that have entrenched interest to present the data in a way that makes the program look more successful. I would like to discuss this. Graywalls (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 February 2021
i propose the change from "drug addicts" to "people".

SIS can be used by an person who uses drugs - the term drug addict is based on the writer's presumptions about SIS users' habitual use to be. one needn't be addicted to drugs to use these spaces.

ALSO, change "illicit" to "illicit or prescribed"

not all drugs used in these sites are illicit - particularly now, many are sources from Safe Supply programs - they are heavily regulated and monitored, but not illegal.

Jklingler (talk) 18:47, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

, the request reads "drug addict" is based on "presumptions" of the writer, but which writer? The wording should try to reflect the expression in sources. Can you demonstrate that sources overwhelmingly support the changes away from "addict"? Sources should be of neutral nature, so not from addiction recovery places, "harm reduction" advocacy or anti drug groups. You will see that sources that do not fall into either of these polarized categories still use the term addicts including mainstream media and scholarly journals. Graywalls (talk) 23:05, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Graywalls: "People" is far more general than "Drug addicts", sources don't need to overwhelmingly explicitly use the world "people". Regardless, the lead paragraph of a Wikipedia article serves to summarise an article's content, it doesn't need to be sourced if it is discussing content sourced in the body of the article. The body of the article does not claim that supervised injection sites are used exclusively by drug addicts, it in fact says the opposite. Even following your standard, the cited reliable sources don't still don't use the term. Just going down the list of references:


 * The first source: "Supervised injection sites (SISs) are controlled health care settings where drug users can inject their own personally acquired illicit drugs under supervision and receive health care"


 * The second: "Supervised injection facilities ... have become a main intervention for injecting drug users (IDUs) and aim to reduce overdose, infectious disease and public order problems among IDUs by offering a protected and medically supervised drug injecting environment"


 * The third: "These facilities provide a space for people to consume pre-obtained drugs in controlled settings, under the supervision of trained staff"


 * "People" or "drug users" are probably both fine, "drug addicts" obviously is not. Regarding "illicit or prescribed", that's not really discussed in the article so you would need a source for that. Volteer1 (talk) 05:16, 26 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "People" is both a neutral term and, frankly, far, far less dehumanizing and problematic than "drug addicts". One needs to ensure a close look at the sources on an issue such as this as SISs are not politically neutral. I can pull some sources later, but I do not need see a need to use "drug addicts" or even "drug users" in the lead section of this article. "Drug users" is implicit given the article (and the opening sentence) is about the purpose of the SISs. "Drug addicts" should not be used. --Smallison (talk) 13:39, 26 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah I agree, which is why I just went with "people". Saying something along the lines of "drug users use drugs" is just clunky anyway. Volteer1 (talk) 14:16, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed . Unnecessary to use "drug addicts" for a whole host of valid reasons.Smallison (talk) 17:19, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 November 2021
This has outdated information. The first safe injection site is approved and will be in Rhode Island. 100.40.13.53 (talk) 11:30, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:58, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

San Francisco Site
No reference to san francisco is in the current article, but a local news article suggests that politicians are pushing to open a site: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-working-to-open-supervised-drug-use-site-by-16626514.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninjaneer666 (talk • contribs) 19:11, November 16, 2021 (UTC)

Lethbridge social disorder study
This article devotes considerable top-level space and multiple references to a single survey commissioned by the City of Lethbridge. This study has been widely criticized as it did not measure any objective markers of social disorder, and instead took the form of a "perceived differences" survey of business owners, which is heavily subject to the well-documented effects of media coverage in shaping opinion. The study itself makes note that the city police service inexplicably denied the release of proper metrics one would use to validate the opinion results, like calls to service, geographic data, and other information which can not be easily altered by factors like social media engagement.

This appears to be an especially egregious oversight, as in the years since the release of the survey, the Lethbridge Police Service has, in accordance with the law, published its crime severity data for the years the SCS was open, and showed that the years Arches operated marked the end of a multi-year crime wave, and actually had the first year since 2013 where crime decreased.

At best, low quality research like perception surveys should be listed under the "Lethbridge" subheading only, not the much more prominent "Canada" section. The speculative portions language should also be dropped altogether - there's some fairly rampant speculation concerning the driving factors of any changes in social disorder that the survey didn't even attempt to examine, and so has no place being presented as a references passage.

Frankly, the entire "social disorder" section is a mess and needs an NPOV workup and rigorous review of sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:4A1:4AC4:84BE:D502:11E9:904 (talk) 16:51, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Canada NPOV
The passage early in the article:

"In August 2020, the largest SCS in North America ARCHES Lethbridge located in Lethbridge, Alberta closed shortly after province revoked their grant for misuse of grant funds.[18] It had been open since February 2018[19] and after it opened, it started causing calls for police service and opioid related EMS calls to the immediate vicinity.[20] Three weeks after its closure, the city already noticed a 36% decline in opioid related requests for emergency medical service.[21]"

Contains a mixture of NPOV and very outdated information. Most notably, it presents the Government of Alberta report on injection sites as its source, without making mention of the extensive criticism it has received for its lack of scientific value and numerous factual shortfalls, all of which have been extensively documented in scholarly and mainstream venues.

Some examples:

"Canadian scientists call on province to retract supervised consumption sites report" https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/canadian-scientists-call-on-province-to-retract-supervised-consumption-sites-report

Calgary doctor on consumption site review panel says he's sorry it fuelled fears around sites' future https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/consumption-site-review-1.5493307

Bad Data Lingers: Happy Birthday to the Alberta SCS Report https://uphns-hub.ca/bad-data-lingers-happy-birthday-to-the-alberta-scs-report/

Academics question methodology of UCP-approved supervised consumption sites report https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/academics-question-methodology-of-ucp-approved-supervised-consumption-sites-report

Supervised consumption sites and crime: scrutinizing the methodological weaknesses and aberrant results of a government report in Alberta, Canada https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-020-00456-2

Alberta's safe consumption review biased and flawed, researcher says https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-s-safe-consumption-review-biased-and-flawed-researcher-says-1.5867053

Alberta’s Discredited Anti-SCS Report Still Raised Across North America https://filtermag.org/alberta-safe-consumption-report/

In general, it's quite important that editors pay close attention to differentiating between neutral and biased sources when adding references, especially if they are the basis for entire sections. In this case, the the United Conservative Party actually campaigned heavily on rolling back harm reduction platforms before commissioning the report, which was not subject to any outside review or standards of evidence before publication.

The passage also contains some factual incorrect and vastly outdated information, with overdoses in Lethbridge being higher in the year post-closure than the year before, as reported on in the media and pulled directly from the Province's "Alberta Substance Use Surveillance System" dashboard, accessible here:

https://www.alberta.ca/substance-use-surveillance-data.aspx

A number of the extensively flawed edits found throughout the page appear to be the work of a single user, who often uses unscientific and derogatory language in their change summaries, and I would suggest that a very thorough vetting of their contributions take place. Until then, I suggest an NPOV disclaimer is added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:8D80:4A1:4AC4:84BE:D502:11E9:904 (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Drug free Australia
Why all this article is giving so much credibility to those organization ? I think this is scientifically unacceptable and I’m wandering why academics and other people wouldn’t they protesting about it ,the half article is their views … PeerNUPS (talk) 23:10, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I've blanked their "Site experience of overdose" section. Any other suggestions are welcome; they are clearly not up to standard for reference. Khardankov (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Added NPOV tag
This entire page is a mess, with a number of edits which use openly hateful language in their descriptions. I'm adding NPOV for now and looking at wrangling some projects to take a crack at cleaning things up a bit. Ilurker (talk) 20:16, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * , it would be helpful if you could provide more concrete examples of what you believe not to follow NPOV and explain why you think they don't. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * As no specific issues have yet been raised, I'm going to proceed with removing the tag. If you still think there are issues which require attention, you can of course still raise them for discussion on this talk page, or edit them accordingly. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:38, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Seraphimblade NPOV was raised Jan 8 with several sources. There are also a number of edits made with hateful or stigmatizing language in the summaries ("junkie sites", etc), many of which have been removed for NPOV violations. Restoring tag. 2001:56A:75D9:4100:1C18:AFB2:4C3A:E248 (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The term "junkie site" does not appear anywhere in the article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:31, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * As I stated, the use of hateful and stigmatizing language has existed in the edit summaries. Please take care to read more closely in the future.
 * Inappropriate and stigmatizing language has been addressed in at least two ANI discussions:
 * One for using blatantly hateful/inappropriate summaries for NPOV edits such as "this is not about shoot up site, its about druggie needle dispensary", "community successfully blocked shooting gallery from opening up", and "Add illegal drug shoot up center in Lethbridge, AB".
 * Another for continued stigmatizing, combative and NPOV activity in articles to do with substance use, homelessness, COVID and other highly politicized matters.
 * The page is semi-protected due to issues with NPOV and edit warring, with many very partisan sources and language making up large sections of the page. It's surprising that NPOV had not been added beforehand.
 * Ilurker (talk) 07:18, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Marking a page with a NPOV tag because of rude edit summaries without anything to point to in terms of actual article content seems silly to me. Removing the tag. Buddy Gripple (talk) 16:28, 5 April 2024 (UTC)