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If nothing else, the smiling mask has been lifted from supervised consumption sites.

The ugly truth has been exposed.

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Claims made by the activists who push hardest for places where opioid users can dose up without fear of dying have been revealed to be only partly true.

Supervised consumption sites (sometimes also called safe-injection sites) do save lives. But contrary to the insistence by site supporters, they also bring crime and chaos to the neighbourhoods in which they are located.

The provincial government’s panel of experts on SCSs (supervised consumption sites), whose exhaustive report was released Thursday, found that previous governments were so keen to get SCSs opened that the sites were granted permits without undertaking adequate consultation with neighbours and public officials.

While there have been no deaths from overdoses at any of the seven sites across the province, the panel discovered “death rates in the immediate vicinity … increased.” And calls from adjacent neighbourhoods for paramedics spiked, too.