Heroin Injection Sites

Ithaca mayor wants a haven for heroin addicts

A bustling economy. Record-low unemployment. A ballooning heroin problem.

That’s how Mayor Svante Myrick describes Ithaca, New York, where he hopes to open the nation’s first safe injection facility — a place where heroin users could shoot their illegal drugs under medical supervision and without fear of arrest.

His proposal, part of a plan to address drug abuse in the 31,000-person college town in central New York, is not a novel idea. Safe injection sites, which also connect clients to treatment programs and offer emergency care to reverse overdoses, exist in 27 cities in other parts of the world. Some have been around for decades.

But no safe havens for injecting illegal drugs exist in the United States, which is experiencing an epidemic of opioid addiction and a rising tide of overdose deaths. Some lawmakers in California and Maryland want to change that and make legal what addiction specialists say is already going on at many clinics or needle-exchange programs across the country.

xsanguine wrote:With our law enforcement values it'd turn into a honey pot within 6 months.

xsanguine wrote:I'm just being flippant, as usual. But yes, I agree with the practice. Baby steps.

Turtleneck wrote:

xsanguine wrote:I'm just being flippant, as usual. But yes, I agree with the practice. Baby steps.

So you like the idea of state funded and operated clinics of this kind?