If people who use drugs are not meaningfully involved, the quality of the research and its impact on policy and service delivery is likely to suffer.

Further, when people who use drugs are not engaged in safe-supply research and policy-making – or are involved only in a tokenistic way – it adds to and deepens the structural challenges of marginalization, isolation, and stigma, which are all too familiar to the drug-using community. What is experienced first-hand as safe is likely to be influenced by race, gender, socio-economic status and other social circumstances that affect how safe supply is delivered. It is also likely to depend on whether the design of so-called safe supply reflects and honours the agency of people who use drugs, and whether or not they have been engaged meaningfully in its design and delivery.