VIDEO – IT’S COMPLICATED –
Feb. 1, 2023 – The drug overdose crisis is killing on average 50 people a month in San Francisco each month and some see safe injection sites as part of the solution. These are places people can go to use their drugs under supervision – in case of an overdos. “What we know about overdose prevention sites is that when people use pre-obtained drugs, they do not die,” said Lydia Bransten, Executive Director, Gubbio Project.
Vancouver, Canada, is home to the first safe injection site in North America established nearly 20 years ago. It has overseen more than 3.5 million injections, and reversed more than 6,000 overdoses, and reported no deaths. Despite being illegal in the United States, a nonprofit in New York City is operating two privately-funded safe injection sites; a model San Francisco could soon follow.
“We can put it up fairly quickly, but we want to do it correctly. We want to make sure that there are wrap services and that there is access as close as we can get to treatment-on-demand,” said Bransten.
