Are safe injection facilities for heroin users a step in the right direction?

published on March 2, 2016 in Medical Xpress

The opioid crisis continues to grow year after year, with heroin-related deaths jumping 39 percent from 2012 to 2013. Now one U.S. community has proposed an innovative strategy to help combat the scourge, which is ravaging cities and towns nationwide.

Last week, the mayor of Ithaca, New York, announced the most aggressive alternative plan to date: opening a safe site where drug users can inject the drug under the supervision of medical personnel without the fear of being arrested.

While this may seem far-fetched, Northeastern University associate professor Leo Beletsky, an expert in law and public health, explained that this measure should be seen in a context of an extraordinary situation.

"I don't think it's crazy at all," said Beletsky, who holds joint appointments in the School of Law and Bouvé College of Health Sciences. "We need innovative interventions because what we are doing is not working."

Ithaca's safe injection site would be the first of its kind in the U.S, but dozens of similar facilities are already operating in Europe, Australia, and Canada. A safe injection site that opened in Vancouver in 2003 sees up to 1,000 visitors a day. And extensive research suggests the intervention is working: According to a study by the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, there was a 35 percent reduction in heroin overdose deaths in the neighborhood surrounding the site from 2001 to 2005. It has also demonstrated positive impact on infectious disease transmission and quality of life in the neighborhood.

"Aside from those direct benefits, the Vancouver facility is also co-located with a range of other services," Beletsky explained. "At the intake desk they will immediately ask you what services you would like that day, whether it's wanting wound care, getting tested, or entering detox. From my perspective, the optimal safe injection program provides the broadest possible support to their clients."

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BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Are safe injection facilities for heroin users a step in the right direction?

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