Answer Addiction

Tag: safe consumption sites

  • Andrew Yang Wants To Invest In Safe Consumption Sites

    Andrew Yang Wants To Invest In Safe Consumption Sites

    “I would not only decriminalize opiates for personal use but I would also invest in safe consumption sites around the country.”

    Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang discussed his plans to decriminalize opioids and the need for harm reduction sites during an interview featured on The Hill released this week. 

    “I would not only decriminalize opiates for personal use but I would also invest in safe consumption sites around the country,” Yang told Krystal Ball in a recent interview. “You go home and you’re still addicted and you wind up in many cases overdosing again. We need to refer these people to counseling, treatment and safe consumption sites as needed.”

    Yang took Purdue Pharma and the government to task for their roles in the ongoing opioid epidemic.

    “At this point we have to say this was a systemic failure of capitalism run amok in the worst and most destructive way possible and that our government should come clean, claw back the resources from the drug companies and put them to work in communities to try to make people stronger and healthier—but also say to individuals who are struggling with addiction that this is not a crime of personal character, this is a systemic problem and if you’re using drugs and addicted, we should be referring you to counseling and treatment and not a prison cell,” he said.

    Julian Castro Is In Favor Of Safe Consumption Sites Too

    Julian Castro, another Democratic presidential candidate has made headlines recently for his statements on safe consumption sites. Castro discussed his views and policies while speaking at a forum hosted by the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition. 

    “I would like these communities to be able to pursue these safe consumption spaces and essentially pilot out how they work,” he said, according to Marijuana Moment. “I believe that we owe it to the effort to see how we can make sure that we avoid [overdose deaths].

    “We’ve been trying it one way for so long and I also believe, having been a mayor of a city, that one of the values of local communities is that they can try out policy in their own community and measure the results and see how it works. The system that we have in place right now doesn’t seem to be working very much at all. Whether it’s Philadelphia or its some of the other cities that have tried it, I believe that we should allow for the piloting of these programs and that that will help us come to a determination nationally about the approach.”

    Sanders & Warren

    Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have also expressed support for safe consumption sites in their platforms. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Safe Injection Site In Philadelphia Ruled Federally Legal By Judge

    Safe Injection Site In Philadelphia Ruled Federally Legal By Judge

    The ruling goes against the wishes of the US Justice Department, which sued to stop the facility from opening.

    A federal judge has ruled that a planned supervised injection site, where individuals can go to use illicit drugs safely under medical supervision, does not violate U.S. federal law. This has opened the door for the city of Philadelphia, where the facility in question would be located, to host the first legal safe injection site in the country.

    “Crackhouse Statute” Does Not Apply

    According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh ruled on Wednesday that a 30-year-old law created to address what was commonly referred to as “crack houses” does not apply to the safe injection site proposed by the non-profit organization Safehouse.

    “The ultimate goal of Safehouse’s proposed operation is to reduce drug use, not facilitate it,” McHugh wrote in the document explaining his decision.

    The ruling goes against the wishes of the U.S. Justice Department, which sued to stop the facility from opening. The government argued that the drugs that would be used are dangerous and the act of using them is illegal.

    “This is in-your-face illegal activity using some of the most deadly, dangerous drugs that are on the streets. We have a responsibility to step in,” said U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania William McSwain in February. “It’s saying, ‘Safehouse, we think this is illegal. Stop what you’re doing.’”

    Saving Lives, Not Encouraging Drug Use

    However, the Safehouse lawyers have argued that the purpose of a safe injection site, also referred to as overdose prevention sites, is to save lives and encourage the individuals who frequent it to get into addiction treatment.

    “I dispute the idea that we’re inviting people for drug use. We’re inviting people to stay to be proximal to medical support,” said Ilana Eisenstein, chief attorney for Safehouse, in September.

    Multiple studies on safe injection sites, including those that have opened across Europe and in Canada, show that they reduce the number of overdose deaths in the area without resulting in an increase in overall illicit drug use.

    They also lessen the spread of dangerous viruses such as HIV and hepatitis by offering clean needles and a place to safely dispose of used ones. These successes have led the American Medical Association to endorse the bringing of these sites to the U.S. However, the Justice Department is determined to continue the fight.

    “The Department of Justice remains committed to preventing illegal drug injection sites from opening,” said McSwain. “Today’s opinion is merely the first step in a much longer legal process that will play out. This case is obviously far from over.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Most Drug Users Willing To Utilize Safe Injection Sites, Study Finds

    Most Drug Users Willing To Utilize Safe Injection Sites, Study Finds

    A new study found that 77% of drug user were willing to utilize safe consumption sites.

    “Safe consumption sites” provide a space to use drugs under medical supervision, away from the streets and with clean equipment such as syringes. They have existed abroad since the ‘80s but not in the U.S. (at least not legally). Some are for them, some are against them. But what about the drug using community?

    Safe consumption programs (also known as supervised injection facilities or SIFs) in Canada and Australia have reported reductions in fatal overdoses and the spread of HIV and hepatitis B and C. As the U.S. faces crisis-level opioid abuse and overdose, it is now forced to confront the potential of SIFs across the country.

    A new study confirmed the willingness of “high-risk opioid users” to utilize these sites as a form of harm reduction. In a survey of 326 people who reported using heroin, fentanyl and illicit opioid pills, about 77% of them reported that they were willing to go to SIFs.

    Among the respondents, 60% reported habitually using drugs in “public or semi-public” spaces, and more than a third had overdosed in the past six months.

    The research was led by a team at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and was published in the Journal of Urban Health in June.

    “On the whole, we found a strong willingness to use safe consumption spaces,” said study lead author Ju Nyeong Park. “This is important because often the voices of people who use drugs are not included in policy debates or in the implementation of public health interventions.”

    The research confirmed that the majority of respondents are “motivated to be safe and take precautions to reduce their exposure to harm,” said study senior investigator Susan Sherman.

    “It’s encouraging because even though these are people engaging in very high-risk behaviors in very different contexts… they were willing to use this harm-reduction intervention,” said Park.

    100 Safe Consumption Sites In 12 Countries

    Currently there are more than 100 such facilities in 12 countries, though none are in the United States. A legal battle taking place in Philadelphia may affect the future of SIFs in the U.S.

    In April, it was reported that Safehouse, a local non-profit organization involved in efforts to establish the nation’s first SIFs in Philadelphia, countersued the government in its attempt to block efforts to open the sites. They argued that SIFs are less about drugs and more about providing a medical service, in addition to giving people the option to access treatment.

    View the original article at thefix.com