Expand Number of Safe Injection Sites
Background
Safe injection sites are supervised sites designed to provide a hygienic and safe environment for illicit intravenous drug use and reduce nuisance from public drug use. Safe Injection sites are a cornerstone of harm reduction strategies towards drug problems. Typically injection sites provide sterile injection equipment, information about drugs and basic health care, treatment referrals, and access to medical staff to drug addicts. Currently there are no legal injection sites in the United States, however many other countries have employed them with levels of success.
Proposed Safe injection sites in the United States
Currently there are thirteen proposed injection sites in the United States. They are found in:
- Seattle
- Philadelphia
- Vermont
- Delaware
- San Francisco
- New York City
- Colorado
- Massachusetts
Positive Results from Safe Injection sites around the World
SISs (Supervised Injection Sites) were efficacious in attracting the most marginalized PWID (People who inject Drugs), promoting safer injection conditions, enhancing access to primary health care, and reducing the overdose frequency. SISs were not found to increase drug injecting, drug trafficking or crime in the surrounding environments. SISs were found to be associated with reduced levels of public drug injections and dropped syringes.
Best evidence from cohort and modeling studies suggests that SISs are associated with lower overdose mortality (88 fewer overdose deaths per 100 000 person-years [PYs]), 67% fewer ambulance calls for treating overdoses, and a decrease in HIV infections.
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