Taking their cue from the Insite project in Vancouver, Quebec health officials say they want to open safe-injection facilities to serve drug addicts in Montreal, the Canadian Press reported July 17.

A network of such facilities is part of the province's public-health plan, although officials are still looking at the feasibility and acceptability of opening Insite-type programs.

Plans in Montreal are moving forward after British Columbia's Supreme Court ruled that Insite was a health facility and that preventing addicts from using it was unconstitutional. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has been working to shut down the program.

Quebec has an established history with harm-reduction programs like Insite, with more than 800 needle-exchange programs in operation. However, Gerald Sidel of the Canadian Addiction Counsellors Certification Federation objected to opening safe-injection facilities in Quebec.

"We're in the business of helping them [addicts] get off drugs," said Sidel. "The real struggle is between abstinence and the other side ... I think at this point in time more money and help should be provided to people who provide recovery services."