Cities Ponder Opiate Friendly Facilities for Drug Use

LET THEM EAT CAKE –

Oct. 23, 2023 – The sites employ medical and social workers who guard against overdoses by supplying oxygen and naloxone, the overdose-reversing drug, and by distributing clean needles and other resources to opioid users. New York City has two sites, the only ones operating openly in the nation.

Safe drug consumption facilities have reversed thousands of overdoses in the United States and abroad, helping people who use potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl avoid the worst consequences of a volatile drug supply.

In the United States, the sites represent a novel form of “harm reduction,” which aims not to make drug users sober or abstinent but to prevent disease, overdose and death. President Biden is the first president to endorse the idea.

But critics argue that the sites encourage a culture of permissiveness around illegal drugs, formally sanctioning opioid use in neighborhoods already struggling with high overdose rates. And they say that the groups working to open the sites, however well intentioned, should not encroach on communities that might be hostile to the strategy.