We've had success here in Denmark with so called "fixerum" meaning supervised places where heroin addicts can shoot up. More than a million people have used there since 2012 and not a single overdose. Also there's been less syringes in playgrounds and around the neighborhoods and more care. In fact, since the "fixerum" was made, there has been a decline of 80% of narcotic waste in high risk areas. At the same time, there has been some bumps in the road and issues with people outside and around the places causing disturbances and making a mess. Overall it's been a pretty big success, but it's by no means something that can curb addiciton on it's own. That's not the main focus.
I am surprised that Vancouver has seen such a rise in syringes, since we had the opposite effect, but perhaps it speaks more to the prevelance of drug use than anything else. There's a lot of moving parts including supervision, number of areas, number of addicts, regulations and so on. I'd like for the article to have gone deeper.