To combat the opioid epidemic, cities are considering drug facilities
Philadelphia is once again at the center of a national campaign to open — or restrict — sites where people use drugs under medical supervision. /p>
Quetcy M. Lozada, a first-term Philadelphia City Council member, stood one September evening near an elementary school just off Kensington Avenue, l he epicenter of a vast fentanyl market in a city that saw a record 1,413 drug overdose deaths last year.
Just a block from houses, the street and the sidewalks were strewn with used syringes and their discarded orange caps.
“Children have to experience this every day,” Ms. Lozada said, the voice rising. The children “are so affected that they don’t want to come to school. »
Public health experts have long supported a controversial strategy aimed at easing the opioid epidemic ravaging the United States. cities like Philadelphia: supervised drug consumption sites, in which people are allowed to use illicit drugs under the supervision of a professional.
Sites employ medical and social workers who protect against overdoses by providing oxygen and naloxone, the drug that reverses overdoses, and distributing clean needles and other resources to opioid users. New York City has two sites, the only ones operating openly in the country.
Safe drug consumption centers have reversed thousands of overdoses in the United States. United and abroad, helping people who use powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl avoid the worst consequences of a volatile drug supply.
In the United States United, the sites represent a new form of “harm reduction,” which aims not to get drug users sober or abstinent, but to prevent disease, overdoses and death. President Biden is the first president to endorse the idea.
But critics say the sites encourage a culture of permissiveness around illegal drugs, formally sanctioning the use of opioids in neighborhoods already grappling with the idea. high overdose rates. And they say groups working to open the sites, no matter how well-intentioned, should not encroach on communities that might be hostile to the strategy.
Hours earlier, Ms. Lozada pushed through a measure through the City Council that limited where consumption sites drugs could operate in the city. The bill, which passed 13-1, survived a veto from Mayor Jim Kenney, who favored opening the facilities.
Ms. Lozada and his allies have framed their efforts not as a rejection of drug sites per se, but as a way for Philadelphians to choose whether there is one that can operate in their neighborhood. Kensington Avenue, which is in Ms. Lozada's neighborhood, is considered one of the most obvious locations for such an establishment.
Mrs. Lozada said his constituents did not want to accept living amid open drug use, that it discouraged the use of local libraries and parks and drove away local businesses. “People in politics started to be afraid: what are we doing? How do we do this? Let's do nothing," she said of the state of her neighborhood.
Ms. Lozada has another idea: she supports
Philadelphia is once again at the center of a national campaign to open — or restrict — sites where people use drugs under medical supervision. /p>
Quetcy M. Lozada, a first-term Philadelphia City Council member, stood one September evening near an elementary school just off Kensington Avenue, l he epicenter of a vast fentanyl market in a city that saw a record 1,413 drug overdose deaths last year.
Just a block from houses, the street and the sidewalks were strewn with used syringes and their discarded orange caps.
“Children have to experience this every day,” Ms. Lozada said, the voice rising. The children “are so affected that they don’t want to come to school. »
Public health experts have long supported a controversial strategy aimed at easing the opioid epidemic ravaging the United States. cities like Philadelphia: supervised drug consumption sites, in which people are allowed to use illicit drugs under the supervision of a professional.
Sites employ medical and social workers who protect against overdoses by providing oxygen and naloxone, the drug that reverses overdoses, and distributing clean needles and other resources to opioid users. New York City has two sites, the only ones operating openly in the country.
Safe drug consumption centers have reversed thousands of overdoses in the United States. United and abroad, helping people who use powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl avoid the worst consequences of a volatile drug supply.
In the United States United, the sites represent a new form of “harm reduction,” which aims not to get drug users sober or abstinent, but to prevent disease, overdoses and death. President Biden is the first president to endorse the idea.
But critics say the sites encourage a culture of permissiveness around illegal drugs, formally sanctioning the use of opioids in neighborhoods already grappling with the idea. high overdose rates. And they say groups working to open the sites, no matter how well-intentioned, should not encroach on communities that might be hostile to the strategy.
Hours earlier, Ms. Lozada pushed through a measure through the City Council that limited where consumption sites drugs could operate in the city. The bill, which passed 13-1, survived a veto from Mayor Jim Kenney, who favored opening the facilities.
Ms. Lozada and his allies have framed their efforts not as a rejection of drug sites per se, but as a way for Philadelphians to choose whether there is one that can operate in their neighborhood. Kensington Avenue, which is in Ms. Lozada's neighborhood, is considered one of the most obvious locations for such an establishment.
Mrs. Lozada said his constituents did not want to accept living amid open drug use, that it discouraged the use of local libraries and parks and drove away local businesses. “People in politics started to be afraid: what are we doing? How do we do this? Let's do nothing," she said of the state of her neighborhood.
Ms. Lozada has another idea: she supports
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