As public drug injection draws criticism in Portland, other U.S. cities fight for a controversial solution
On the concrete floor of a public restroom, inside a parking garage in Portland’s Old Town, a heroin addict took his last breaths. He was overdosing while his “street brother” pounded aggressively on the locked door that stood between them.
“I don’t know if it was stronger or if he did more than usual,” says Raymond Thornton, as he recounts his 40-year-old friend’s untimely death. He had been a couple of blocks away from the SmartPark garage on Northwest Naito Parkway and Davis Street when he heard news of the overdose. When he arrived, he saw an ambulance, “but he was already gone,” Thornton says.
This was one of 60 heroin-related deaths in Multnomah County in 2010. There would be 284 more over the next four years. All deaths where heroin is found present in the bloodstream are categorized as heroin-related deaths by the state medical examiner.
“There’s been a significant increase in heroin use in the last few years in the Portland area,” says Kim Toevs, Multnomah County Health Department harm reduction manager.
In 2014, there were 122 heroin-related deaths in Oregon, 80 of which were in Portland’s tri-county area – three fewer than the year prior, although Multnomah County’s heroin-related deaths were down significantly, from 65 to 54, according to Oregon State Police medical examiner reports.
This decrease is a sign Oregon lawmakers’ 2014 move to allow for wider distribution of the overdose-reducing drug naloxone is helping reduce deaths from overdose in places where it’s available to users, Toevs says.