PARIS (Reuters) - France inaugurated its first supervised injection facility for drug users on Tuesday, setting aside years of acrimonious debate over the merits of a strategy that has slowly gained traction since the Swiss embraced it three decades ago. France's Socialist government pushed legislation permitting supervised injection centres through parliament last year. Health Minister Marisol Touraine described the move as a milestone in French public health strategy. Touraine said that the conditions of many hard drug users amounted to a public health emergency. That body, created to promote a evidence-based approach to a morally divisive issue, said in a report in 2004 that benefits of such injection centres help improve safety, hygiene and access to social services.

Source: The Star October 11, 2016 12:11 UTC