Officials in New York City say nine lives have been saved so far after the opening of two new supervised illegal drug injection sites. The government-approved facilities are the first of their kind in the United States. They come as U.S. overdose deaths topped 100,000 during the first year of the pandemic. Locations offer clean needles and can administer the opioid reversal medication called Naloxone as well as provide medical care and drug dependency treatment options. Advocates have long fought for better and safer resources for people with addiction. There are now over 120 drug injection sites operating worldwide.
these overdose prevention centers are places where people who are already publicly injecting, we are incentivizing them to come into these places so that they can sit down, learn strategies around injection that really reduce the harms that come with injection, that are able to have conversations about the substances that they are using and to use under the supervision of other people.
Part of the reason why this issue is so urgent is because our drug supply currently is being adulterated with a more fast-acting opioid called fentanyl. When this happens and the drug supply is contaminated, we are in a situation where people are using and overdosing faster and then we are getting more deaths. That is part of the reason why we are seeing such a surge. With these overdose prevention centers, people
— source democracynow.org | Dec 07, 2021