NYC OKS safe sites for using drugs
NEW YORK – The first officially authorized safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics have been cleared to open in New York City in hopes of curbing deadly overdoses, officials said Tuesday.
The “overdose prevention centers” provide a monitored place for drug users to partake.
Also known as supervised injection sites or safer consumption spaces, they exist in Canada, Australia and Europe and have been discussed for years in New York and some other U.S. cities and states.
A few unofficial facilities have operated for some time.
Proponents see the facilities as pragmatic, life-saving tools for stopping overdoses, which are claiming a record number of lives in the U.S. and its most populous city.
Opponents, however, see the sites as moral failures that essentially sanction people harming themselves and create hubs of drug use.
Further, federal law bans operating a place for taking illegal drugs, and the government successfully sued in recent years to block a supervised consumption space in Philadelphia.