image by: Paul VanDerWerf

HWN Suggests

Safe Injection Sites Are Coming to America

The Downtown Eastside neighborhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, looks a little worse for wear. On Hastings Street, the decrepit buildings are a mix of boarded-up windows, cheap bodegas and fast food joints. The sidewalk is littered with trash, and a line of homeless people, along with their belongings, tents and other makeshift shelters, winds down the block. On a recent Wednesday morning, the crowd was surprisingly lively. It was 9 a.m., but it looked like no one had yet been to sleep from the night before.

One storefront on Hastings houses a small facility that at first glance seems like any traditional community health clinic. Inside the door is a reception area with mismatched…

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  Vancouver’s safe drug-use sites are wrenching to see. California should open them anyway

I came to Vancouver to see what can be learned as we debate safe consumption in California, where more than 6,000 people die each year from overdoses. Think about that. Six thousand is the roughly number of Californians who die each year from traffic accidents and firearms combined. Across the U.S., one person dies every five minutes from an overdose. In California, on average, 16 perish daily.

 DOJ to evaluate providing safe havens for drug use

The Justice Department said it is “evaluating” the potential use of safe injection sites for people to take heroin and other narcotics with protections against fatal overdoses.

 What's The Evidence That Supervised Drug Injection Sites Save Lives?

Critics say supervised injection sites encourage drug use and bring crime to surrounding communities. Proponents argue that they save lives and can help people in addiction reconnect with society and get health services.

Articles of Interest

Science supports supervised injection sites. Why don’t politicians agree?

But the supporters of the bill aren’t relying on anything so malleable as belief. Instead they cite decades of scientific research demonstrating that supervised consumption sharply reduces the incidence of death, disease and infection among injection drug users. There is also ample evidence that coercive treatment fails, 12-step programs work only five to 10 percent of the time, and supervised consumption often serves as a pathway to voluntary treatment. Within two years of its opening in 2003, North America’s first supervised consumption site, Insite in Vancouver, Canada, was associated with a 30 percent increase in detox enrollment. Later studies have confirmed that the trend continues.

Does evidence support supervised injection sites?

Best evidence from cohort and modeling studies suggests that SISs are associated with lower overdose mortality (88 fewer overdose deaths per 100 000 person-years [PYs]), 67% fewer ambulance calls for treating overdoses, and a decrease in HIV infections. Effects on hospitalizations are unknown.

One Doctor’s Answer to Drug Deaths: Opioid Vending Machines

Across North America, tainted opioids are killing people who use drugs. Vancouver’s Mark Tyndall says we should start dispensing safer pills using high-tech machines.

Philadelphia Safe-Injection Site Draws Supporters in Court

Safehouse, a nonprofit in Philadelphia, seeks to open a site where people can use drugs in a safe and sanitary environment with help to avoid overdose fatalities. Federal prosecutors sued the nonprofit in February, arguing it would violate federal law by creating a place for people to use illegal drugs such as heroin and bootleg fentanyl. Cities including New York, San Francisco and Seattle, where there are also plans to add safe sites for drug users, filed a brief Wednesday in support of the Philadelphia nonprofit.

A study questioning the evidence for safe injection sites has been retracted

A meta-analysis reviewing the evidence on safe injection sites has been retracted due to “methodological weaknesses.”

Calling Safe Consumption Sites by a Different Name Increases Public Support

A new study found that, all other things being equal, people were more likely to support "overdose prevention sites" opening in their community.

Canada Figured Out How to Win the Drug War

Don’t fight it.

Drug-Injection Sites Are Battleground in Fight Against Opioid Overdoses

he facilities provide a supervised setting to use drugs. Proponents say they save lives. Opponents say they normalize drug use.

How Safe Injection Facilities Could Reduce Fentanyl Overdoses

Fentanyl has perhaps been the most intractable part of the opioid crisis, but new strategies being deployed in San Francisco and Philadelphia might help.

Let Cities Open Safe Injection Sites

It may seem counterintuitive: Give drug users space and support to inject themselves with potentially deadly substances, even while encouraging them to stop. But dozens of studies suggest that these sites curtail overdose deaths and increase participation in drug treatment. Despite millions of injections that have occurred at more than 90 facilities internationally over the past three decades, not a single overdose death has been recorded.

Overdose Deaths Likely to Fall for First Time Since 1990

There is little cause for celebration, health officials and epidemiologists say. The death rate remains swollen by powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and Mr. Anderson warned a new, deadly analog could arrive anytime. The rise of methamphetamines and related deaths remains a worrisome trend.

Research Finds Signs Of Recovery, Solidarity At Underground Safe Injection Site

Of course, safe injection sites will never be a whole or one-size-fits-all solution for Americans' opioid abuse and other drug problems. Davidson noted that many U.S. users are in rural and suburban areas, as is the case in his native Australia, and such users are unlikely to drive or find transport for a fair distance to visit a centralized site serving a large region.

Safe injection rooms save lives – yet the UK government continues to oppose them

Supervised injecting facilities – sometimes known as overdose prevention centres or drug consumption rooms – are a critical tool in ending the overdose crisis. These are places where people are allowed to inject illegal drugs in hygienic conditions in the supportive presence of medical staff and peer workers. They are primarily intended to provide services for vulnerable, poor or homeless people who would otherwise inject in public places – such as alleys or parks.

There’s Been a Secret Safe Injection Site in the US for Three Years

It has seen no deaths, no apparent neighborhood problems, and the onsite reversal of four overdoses. As a condition of their research, the authors of the paper did not disclose the facility's location as it's unsanctioned and potentially illegal.

What goes on inside a medically supervised injection facility?

An injecting centre provides the setting and the possibility for a new type of connection with our clients. The power of suspending judgement for those who are the most judged and vilified in our society can be transformative.

Without safe injection sites, more opioid users will die

The misconceptions that they promote drug-use and increase criminal activity in the surrounding neighbourhoods have long been dispelled.

Resources

InSite for Community Safety

Founded in 2006, InSite for Community Safety is a broad banner under which supporters of InSite have come together to defend, promote and encourage others across Canada and the World to deliver humane, inclusive and pragmatic initiatives that improve the lives of drug users and their communities.