Lawmakers looking at giving drug users ‘shoot-up rooms’
This may sound radical, but it’s really humane.
Click here for reuse options!Across the United States, heroin users have died in alleys behind convenience stores, on city sidewalks and in the bathrooms of fast-food joints – because no one was around to save them when they overdosed.
An alarming 47,000 American overdose deaths in 2014 – 60 percent from heroin and related painkillers like fentanyl – has pushed elected leaders from coast to coast to consider what was once unthinkable: government-sanctioned sites where users can shoot up under the supervision of a doctor or nurse who can administer an antidote if necessary.
“Things are getting out of control. We have to find things we can do for people who are addicted now,” said New York state Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who is working on legislation to allow supervised injection sites that would also include space for treatment services.
Copyright 2016 Liberaland
12 responses to Lawmakers looking at giving drug users ‘shoot-up rooms’
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Suzanne McFly May 9th, 2016 at 09:57
I have lost friends and family to heroin overdose, I don’t know how “humane” it is to have a room that supplies clean needles. Is there a limit of when you no longer let someone use in these rooms? Do you tell them “well you used up you 10 narcan saves, so now you have to shoot up on your own”?. I am not saying this is wrong, but blanket policies have never worked. Each addict has their own reasons and cures, unfortunately some of the cures are death.
Um Cara May 9th, 2016 at 11:45
Do you tell them “well you used up you 10 narcan saves, so now you have to shoot up on your own”?
I hope you give them an 11th or a 111th save if needed.
I don’t know how “humane” it is to have a room that supplies clean needles.
Very, it prevents the spread of disease (amongst addicts and others in their lives). I really don’t think there are many folks thinking ‘I’d go ahead and become a heroin addict but dadburnit, I can’t find any clean needles. If only there were a place I could find some clean needles, I could go ahead and ruin my life.”
Suzanne McFly May 9th, 2016 at 13:31
Of course I don’t believe we need to limit the use of narcan, I just think if you supply the space and the supplies, you will have more people who will OD. Being against it has not worked, but I will not be for accepting it either. If one person see this as a reason to at least try the drug, that is too many IMO.
Um Cara May 9th, 2016 at 16:11
. If one person see this as a reason to at least try the drug, that is too many IMO.
I haven’t seen evidence that these kinds of harm reduction measures lead new people to try heroin, nor can I really imagine the scenario of someone wanting to try heroin but for the lack of access to a needle (one would think access to heroin itself would be a more likely barrier keeping folks from trying it the first time).
But in any case, that’s a pretty tough metric. Regardless of how much disease and death is eliminated it really isn’t worth it to you if one person tries heroin who wouldn’t otherwise?
Suzanne McFly May 9th, 2016 at 19:48
I don’t understand how you are pulling the statement that I don’t believe something is “worth” it. I have lost good people in my life due to this drug. This drug is one of the most addictive drugs in the world. A lot of people who normally don’t do drugs simply tried it due to the ease of access and have become hooked. That pisses me off and I hate that I lost people, if you want to sit in your high and mighty position and judge me for hurting for the people I lost, go for it because your judgement means nothing to me.
Um Cara May 9th, 2016 at 22:09
I don’t understand how you are pulling the statement that I don’t believe something is “worth” it.
You said if one person sees this as a reason to at least try the drug, that is too many in your opinion. That’s all I was referring to.
if you want to sit in your high and mighty position and judge me for hurting for the people I lost, go for it because your judgement means nothing to me.
Not judging you, having a discussion with you on a topic we are both passionate about. Like you – I’ve lost people to drug abuse, also, I have current abusers of narcotics in my family. That’s why I feel pretty passionately about various harm reduction efforts.
I’m very much in favor of these kinds of programs and think they should be judged on standards like was the overall harm reduced and not based on whether a specific individual/set of individuals might try drugs (or whether other similar scenarios might occur or not).
Otherwise we are going to continue to fight our public health problems with the same tools we’ve been using the past several decades.
Suzanne McFly May 10th, 2016 at 06:30
I still have 2 family members who are fighting addiction to heroin and one is taking methadone and the other I take care of a couple days a week and she will need to be taken care of for the rest of her life. I see the end result of the drug and I have come to hate it.
oldfart May 9th, 2016 at 10:56
Humans being.
Addiction is a disease. The overabundance of opioids is the problem. Taking a prescribed pain killer (for pain) is one thing. Using heroin for “the high” is another. Once a person crosses over the threshold of pain and starts to enjoy the “relief”, the legally manufactured and prescribed pain killer now becomes the dreaded gateway drug and addiction ensues.
The goal must be ending addiction not encouraging it.
IMO, neither the pharmaceutical companies or your local pusher wants anything to do with that for obvious reasons.
I always thought that offering clean needles was a way to stop the spread of aids, back then another killer of humans as well as overdosing. Offering junkies a “safe place” to shoot up so that intervention, if needed, can take place is ridiculous at the minimum and potentially criminal at the extreme.
Pakistan is a country where “legal opium” is grow for turning it into legal prescribed opiodal
Um Cara May 9th, 2016 at 17:23
The goal must be ending an addiction not encouraging it.
Do you consider programs like this as encouraging addiction?
oldfart May 9th, 2016 at 20:53
Offering clean needles, no.
Allowing users a “safe house” to use an Illegal drug, yes.
Further, without a law to cover the possibility of liability of a death of a user
because the safe house did not know a user was there or administered the narcan drug too late. it’s a can of worms waiting to be kicked over.
I am sympathetic to the idea because I lost friends to overdoses but getting them off heroin or pain killers IMO must be the goal.
Jimmy Fleck May 9th, 2016 at 11:58
Is the next step to provide them with clean safe heroin in a proper amount so that they are safe on the front end instead of waiting to see if the overdose themselves?
robert May 9th, 2016 at 13:48
I believe this has been done in Switzerland and it didn’t end well