Spring comes to town with fresh winds and hopeful airs, and it brings fresh ideas as well.

One of those fresh ideas have blown into city hall. It involves outside-the-box thinking, so it is not without its challenges but it deserves to be endorsed as an experiment about a change in direction that can serve Torontonians well.

That idea is the safe injection service. The Province of Ontario’s local board of health for Toronto has now endorsed the City of Toronto medical officer of health’s report recommending that Toronto City Council support applications to the federal government to approve facilities where those who use intravenous drugs can inject drugs safely.

Not all of us have direct knowledge of the friends, family members and other colleagues who might be intravenous drug users, but there are many such individuals around us.

The scope of the number can be seen in a program the city has been running for almost a decade.

To decrease the spread of diseases such as HIV-AIDS and hepatitis, which can happen when users share needles, the city has operated a needle exchange program, allowing people who use drugs to get clean needles at no charge, no questions asked.

Last year the city distributed almost two million needles. That figure brings the extent of the problem into focus.

Nor do we often confront the tragic outcomes of intravenous drug use. In 2013, more than 200 people died from drug overdoses in Toronto, a number that has been relentlessly increasing. Many of these were younger individuals.

The fact that possession of these drugs is illegal has not made the situation better for those who use drugs or for society at large. Taking the high moral ground — calling drug use bad and shunning those who do use — has not been effective. Drug use has expanded.

One initiative that has had a positive impact is providing a safe place for people to inject their drugs. Insite in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side is one such place, and there are others in 90 cities around the world, many in Europe.

A safe injection service has proven to save lives because health professionals can intervene in cases of overdose; staff can ensure health risks of the injection procedure itself are minimized; and people who use drugs can be offered support to minimize — maybe end — the damages of addiction. These sites offer vulnerable users, who are often surrounded by other vulnerable people and people ready to do them harm, a connection with supportive people.

There are public benefits as well. The number of people shooting up in laneways and in coffee shop washrooms is reduced. The number of discarded needles in parks and in gutters is reduced. Crime in the vicinity of the facility has been shown to be reduced.

Insite in Vancouver is a stand-alone facility. What’s proposed in Toronto is to operate the safe injection services within existing facilities where health services, including the distribution of needles, are currently provided. In terms of the three locations — Queen and Bathurst, Queen near Carlaw and close to Dundas Square — the only change will be the addition of a new service, which helps those now visiting these facilities. It means there will be fewer people injecting drugs in public places around these facilities, as well as fewer used needles in public places. Those are two reasons why there has been no loud outcry from businesses and residents living near those locales.

What a safe injection service such as Insite shows is that outcomes for people who use drugs, and for the public, are best when we ask, “How can we reduce the harm of this practice?” That’s the fresh thinking of safe injection services, and we should welcome these services in Toronto. We might not be able to get rid of intravenous drug use, but we can reduce its harmful effects.

City council will vote on the proposal in June or July, and if approved, the applications will then be sent to Ottawa for approval. May the fresh spring winds still be blowing through the council chamber when the vote occurs.

That’s the magic of spring after the cold, hard, cramped thinking of winter.