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Since two overdose prevention centers opened in NYC in late 2021, health department officials report they have prevented 59 overdoses
In late 2021, the nation's first safe injection sites, also called overdose prevention centers (OPC), opened in New York City. Drug users can bring their drugs to the sites where trained staff provide clean needles, monitor them during use and can provide naloxone if necessary.
The NYC Health Department reports that, in the first three weeks of operation, staff at the two OPCs averted at least 59 overdoses to prevent injury and death. In the first three weeks of operation, the centers have been used more than 2,000 times.
“These data are promising and show how Overdose Prevention Centers will reduce needless suffering and avoidable death,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Dave A. Chokshi. “The simple truth is that Overdose Prevention Centers save lives – the lives of our neighbors, family and loved ones.”
In December 2021, the Fund for Public Health, a non-profit organization in New York, opened a request for proposals to install public health vending machines that will dispense naloxone and clean needles in an effort to help those who are "disproportionately burdened" by overdoses.
In a recent poll, Police1 asked readers if safe injection sites can help reduce drug overdoses. Here's how you responded.
Read our columnists' take on this issue and share your opinion below.
The ground rules: As in an actual debate, the pro and con sides are assigned randomly as an exercise in critical thinking and analyzing problems from different perspectives.
Our debaters: Jim Dudley, a 32-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department where he retired as deputy chief of the Patrol Bureau, and Chief Joel Shults, EdD, who retired as chief of police in Colorado.
Jim Dudley: I am steadfastly against the idea of legal supervised drug injection sites anywhere in America. This is the latest example of a social experiment with deadly consequences and a major threat to the rest of those who are not active intravenous drug users.
Harm reduction policies are often created with the knowledge that a harmful or illegal behavior may be adjusted to reduce harm. Safe injection sites seem to be encouraging rather than discouraging the illegal use of intravenous drugs. In this case, it creates a “normalization” of illegal and harmful drug use.
The message of a state-sanctioned “legal supervised drug injection site” is preposterous. We are talking about illegal drugs that are harmful and addictive at the federal level and in most states in America today. We are at a record-breaking pace over the past few years of overdose deaths across the country, with over 700 recorded in San Francisco alone in 2020.
The research so far is inconclusive at best as to whether drug injection sites create positive or negative results. We have seen catastrophic events over the past few years of other social experiments regarding de-funding the police, bail reform and decriminalization of crime statutes.
In the vein of drug use (pun somewhat intended), free needle programs that give out free syringes for drug injections have reduced the widespread diseases associated with the use of shared "dirty needles" among users. But when the details are examined, with so many needles given out (approximately 4.5 million per year) not nearly the same amount are returned, with dirty needles showing up on our nation's streets, in doorways, at parks and other public spaces. As a result, another $1 million in San Francisco's budget for example is reserved for needle pick-ups from public areas. I’m not sure where any sort of “prevention” aspects come from the free supplies given at needle exchanges, where verbiage states:
We provide safer injection supplies like cookers, cotton (small and large), alcohol wipes, sani hands, sterile water, saline, tourniquets (both latex and non-latex), and vitamin C. You can also get safer smoking supplies like aluminum foil, pipe covers and brillo, wound care and medical supplies like gauze, medical tape, hot hands (instant hot compress), Band-Aids, saline and triple antibiotic ointment.”
Joel Shults: Jim, you use the phrase “social experiment” to describe safe injection sites. We’ve been experimenting with a lot of things for over 100 years.
The federal government enacted its first drug regulation with the 1914 Harrison Act, which means we’ve been trying to control drug use for 108 years. In 1875, San Francisco attempted to regulate opium dens. The 1920s saw a brief experiment with banning alcohol. The successes of prohibition are overshadowed by its failure. During the 1950s, federal sentences were increased, including the death penalty for selling heroin to minors. The social upheavals of the 1960s saw debates favoring legalization vs. harsher penalties. The 1970s saw Nixon’s war on drugs declaring drugs “public enemy number one.” His recommended legislation included prevention and treatment, but that part got little attention. The 1980s saw the crack cocaine epidemic associated with the rise in violent crime that had spilled into suburbia from the inner city. The 1990s saw a ramping up of law enforcement and a building boom in prisons. Mandatory minimum sentences and racial disparity in sentencing attracted attention in the new century. In recent years the decriminalization of drugs, particularly marijuana, defied federal law and the Obama administration chose not to fight it.
The point of this little history lesson is to ask what have we accomplished in the 100+ years of trying to keep people drug-free? Can we rely on law enforcement and the courts to accomplish this goal? Maybe a strategy to keep people alive long enough to maintain the hope of recovery isn’t so wild after all.
Jim Dudley: Joel, I agree with the idea of keeping America “drug-free” is an impossibility. However, with respect to the 100 years of social experimenting – except for the horrendous alcohol prohibition policy from 1919-1933 – we have made some policy moves to keep drug abuse issues from going off the rails, as we have seen since the end of the “drug war” where we turned the keys to the car over to public health.
Advocates and proponents of drugs have moved from “compassionate use” to de-criminalization to recreational and now, as we have seen in Oregon, to full on legalization. The normalization of drug use, from marijuana to federal schedule 1 hallucinogens and opiates, has created an explosion of overdose deaths as never seen before. Property crimes may be attributable to the trend to decriminalize as well.
Whenever people talk about legalization, I always ask if we will be giving drugs away for free as well. An unknown number of auto and home burglaries are certainly perpetrated by those with serious drug abuse and addiction issues.
One aspect of the injection sites is that drug testing will be done. An individual walks in with their street drug and has it tested before use. It is unclear what will happen when the drug tests for high amounts of fentanyl or other dangerous substances. Will the sample be destroyed? Be given back with additional naloxone on hand? Will “clean” drugs then be substituted?
There’s also the matter of the target audience who will be using injection sites. They are often homeless, drug-addicted and many suffering from mental illness. Does this cater to their addiction, in hopes of saving their lives, only to continue down their self-destructive path?
I also wonder what effect the city and state-sponsored injection sites (illegal by federal standards) will have on the public and impressionable youth, in particular. The message is a muddy one, to be sure, and a mixed one that says “drugs are bad and harmful, but not to worry, we will make it safe for your consumption.”
In reading studies on the viability and possible consequences of a “legal injection” site in America, the ones I have read are speculative, since there is only one currently in America today. We do not compare with other nations that may have different laws, cultures, resources and attitudes. We have seen the toll on lives and families with the harm reduction attitudes, policies and programs in cities where misery and blight are often accompanying consequences. Let’s not add to the problems.
Joel Shults: I think a good argument for harm reduction is harm reduction for the population at large. A decade of experience in 120 locations across 10 countries can’t be ignored. Their reports show less drug paraphernalia litter in neighborhoods, fewer overdose fatalities, and reduced disturbances related to drug use and sales. The centers provide access to intervention programs, as well as reduce HIV and drug-related sexual encounters.
There’s no question that the concept makes us a little queasy, kind of like hearing a parent give up and let their teenagers drink and party in the basement because “at least we know where they are.” I’m not much more enthusiastic about that than I am about safe injection sites. It smells of giving up. However, it will be the numbers that prove any results.
I hope that data on more than just overdose deaths are measured, such as the use of treatment programs, neighborhood safety and eventual reduction in demand. Might work, might not, but on balance, it’s probably worth trying.
NEXT: Evolving strategies to win the war on opioids.
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