May 17, 2023 – Jose Martinez spent several years homeless and unemployed, trapped in a vicious cycle of addiction to synthetic marijuana – a laboratory-made drug that affected his mind and behavior and is dangerous and sometimes fatal.
His life modified when the Bronx, New York, resident began rehab in 2017. He owes this largely to the establishment of an overdose prevention center in New York City's Harlem neighborhood – certainly one of two official so-called protected injection sites within the United States, where people can use illegal drugs under the supervision of trained staff to stop death and illness.
The other is in town's Washington Heights neighborhood. At the time, each locations were syringe exchange sites that merged in 2021 and added supervised injection to create OnPoint NYC.
Although Martinez didn’t inject drugs, he used the opposite facilities there, including washing facilities and showers.
“People have access to safer supplies, but also to mental health services, and I took advantage of those,” said Martinez, 35. “Before that, I attempted withdrawal and detoxing, but that didn't help me. [site] helped me get there after I was ready.”
He added: “We were a community, like a family.”
For the primary time, the Federal Government will a study how well overdose prevention centers work, in keeping with to an announcement on May eighth.
A grant of greater than $5 million over 4 years will go to New York University and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, to check 1,000 people on the two New York sites, in addition to one other site scheduled to open in Providence next yr.
The announcement comes as fatal overdoses proceed to say lives across the country. There have been greater than 106,000 deaths from overdose in 2021.
The approach is controversial. Critics claim it enables illegal drug use and brings crime to surrounding areas. But overdose prevention facilities exist already. operating in 14 countriesincluding Canada. There are efforts to open such facilities in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.
For and against
Opponents include the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D), and former U.S. Attorney for Colorado Jason Dunn. Some argue that approving a study on illegal drug use breaks the law.
“If the Biden administration wants to fund a study of illegal activities, it should be honest about it and ask Congress to change the law,” said Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow on the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Although there has never been a large-scale study of supervised injections within the United States, other countries have studied how well this method works. Study 2021 from Canada found that overdose deaths around a supervised injection site in Vancouver fell by 26% in comparison with the remainder of town.
Proponents also say that providing designated areas for individuals with addiction problems would cut back drug use in public and waste, akin to used syringes.
It can be a start line for people who find themselves ready for recovery, says Miriam Komaromy, MD, medical director of the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center.
“Preventing deaths is not the same as treatment; nobody believes it's the same,” she said. “It builds trust with people who are often alienated from society because of stigma. If you can build trust, that's the bridge to getting someone treatment.”
Martinez, who has since found a job doing street outreach for the advocacy group National Harm Reduction Association, said he sees people avoiding fatal overdoses and infectious diseases akin to hepatitis, HIV and AIDS because injection sites are clean and there are trained staff monitoring them.
“Everyone deserves a chance and an opportunity,” he said. “It's not someone else's job to dictate what that looks like.”