Injection Sites Would Save Lives

NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT –

July 9, 2023 – But addiction is not governed by commonsense, reason or logic. It is a compulsive, self-destructive disease. Addicts who can’t use in a safe environment will play Russian roulette in the street with an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable drug supply, tainted by synthetic fentanyl and xylazine, or “tranq,” a flesh-rotting animal sedative.

These two drugs enable suppliers to boost profits by cheaply making drugs more potent and enduring. They also greatly increase the risks of fatal overdose. Today, addicts, and even low-level dealers, often don’t know what’s in the powder and pills circulating on the street. Still, to avoid the horrific agony of withdrawal, addicts will use drugs, desperately and without protections, in alleys, abandoned houses, apartments, fast-food restrooms — anywhere they can.

Drug overdoses now kill more than 5,000 people a year in Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia alone, where fentanyl and tranq dominate the street drug market, a record 1,276 people died of overdoses in 2021.