Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen, force behind Insite clinic, dies at 88

published on October 1, 2021 in Times Colonist

VANCOUVER — Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen, a driving force behind North America’s first life-saving supervised drug injection clinic, has died.

Owen was 88.

A statement from his family says he died peacefully on Sept. 30 from complications related to Parkinson’s disease.

Owen served in various elected roles in Vancouver from 1978 to 2002, including the last nine years as the city’s mayor.

He was one of the first champions of the four pillars drug strategy, an approach to addiction that emphasizes prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction, and his work led to the creation of Insite, North America’s first supervised injection site…