Have you ever accessed a public washroom at a Vancouver business and noticed the lights were tinted blue or purple?

“Blue lights are sometimes installed in public washrooms to discourage injecting drug use. The lights are intended to visually obscure superficial veins, thereby making it difficult to inject drugs intravenously,” they state in the policy position paper.

And because the lights reduce visibility, it can lead to riskier drug injection behaviours.

It might also mean someone would attempt to use drugs in other locations nearby, like staircases.