This is one of those things like homeless policy I agree with in principal, but it really won't pay to be the only place doing it. Yes, it would be better if safe injection sites were a thing everywhere. No, I don't want every junkie in the pacific northwest coming to my city. The practical concerns to my own safety and the health of the city overrides my theoretical political preferences.

how brave of them.

Brilliant move on the part of the area's NIMBYs. Now Seattle will have a monopoly on junkies!
...kidding. mostly.
The problem is obviously large and widespread. I get the point of safe injection sites, but are these going to be "safe spaces" where no questions are asked, or are they going to be places where addicts can get counseling and be steered toward treatment?
If these are the latter then maybe we should be selling them as treatment and counseling centers that allow addicts to safely consume as they start their journey to recovery. I think there'd be a lot less opposition with those optics.

The statistics on these safe injection sites as a public health benefit and a hastened path to treatment stack up pretty high. It's hard for some to see that not condoning a safe place to IV inject drugs is the same thing as condoning it in your businesses bathroom or at your corner bus stop. It's going to happen either way, it's just a question of whether you want to deal with it head on or pretend it's not happening.

Yep, the suburbs are going for exactly what Holmes is against.

@3 kind of both, is how they're described. They absolutely hope to be a path to recovery, but also need to be low-barrier or people will just shoot in the library bathroom instead.

Actual addiction treatment can be a couple of steps down the road, first people have to find a way to believe they should care what happens to them. Having staff making human connections with people really is effective (I've seen this in a different treatment context), but it's hard for a certain type of commentator [Seattle Times] to take seriously.

Not being a person who has used opiates I am curious as to how fast, after injection, does the user react to an overdose or to some contaminate mixed in with the dose. It would seem that the used would have to hang around the injection sight for the drug to take full effect and still be there for the medical people to provide the necessary care. Will the medical personnel also inject the user? Would the users be vulnerable to people who would assault them, nearby, to take their stash?

A road to recovery is so important. This needs to be empathized greatly and to stop the stigmatization of addicts and the pain and loss to families, the addicts and the communities.

@4,
Hordes of people will choose to pretend it's not happening.

This country (and probably the whole world really) is packed to the gills with people whose solution to every problem in society and in their own lives is to bury their head in the sand as deep as it'll go.

Would safe-consumption sites regulate overdose deaths? I imagine most addicts would top off their safe consuming and then supplement with old-fashioned consumption.

@6. If they overdose, they arent getting up and going anywhere. They lose consciousness as soon as the drugs are injected. That's the attraction of IV use, it goes right into the blood and hits all at once.

Where's the science to quantify the benefits of shooting in the library bathroom?

A dead drug addict doesn't steal your stuff.

@14: see also: yestoscs.org/science

@12, Jackkay wrote, "Safe Sites will work to stop overdoses and the spread of disease through clean needles, just like needle exchanges work now. They will offer free options to kick the heroin habit and councilors for help."

Correct. They do that and more.

Regarding Vancouver, BC, Jackkay asked, "If save sites are making a difference why are there more overdose deaths?"

Because:

There has been a tragic increase in Vancouver's overdose death rates recently due to Fentanyl. All of these deaths have occurred outside of InSite and despite an increase in overdose interventions at InSite there has still been zero deaths.

To address the opioid epidemic in Canada and due to the proven success of InSite, there have now been several more safe consumption spaces opened in Vancouver and across Canada.

@21: Strange combo, but I'll respond:

Gambling is allowed specifically in government-regulated casinos. Gambling is not a public health problem.

Location of use provides no additional risk to users of any sort of pornography. Pornography is not a public health problem.

Supervised alcohol consumption sites are typically known as "bars," "taverns," and "pubs." In addition to use of such sites for drinking, people are typically offered safe rides home from the sites. Alcohol is highly addictive, poses great long-term health risks, and overdose can result in death, but rather than telling people "just say no" or throwing them in jail when they're caught with it, we teach people safer techniques for using it, and we treat them if they get sick from it. Production, distribution, and sale of alcohol is strictly regulated and controlled, so people know what they're getting.

Cigarettes, unlike heroin, can be used in a variety of public outdoor locations without additional risk--no danger of accidental overdose while alone, no police to hide from behind a dirty dumpster while rushing to inject. They pose no immediate risk of death, and thus supervision would provide no additional safety to users. Production, distribution, and sales of nicotine products are strictly regulated and controlled, so people know what they're getting when purchasing those products.

Unlike with public use of injection drugs in unsafe locations, neither gambling, nor alcohol, nor nicotine, nor pornography leads in any situation to spread of infectious disease like HIV and Hepatitis C, to abscesses, or to infection.

@21: I have some questions to add to your list:

- Why not have seat belts for people operating vehicles in close proximity to other vehicles at high speeds?

- Why not have helmets for people riding motorcycles, bicycles, and skate boards?

- Why not have ropes and harnesses for people climbing rocks?

- Why not have vaccinations for children living in a disease-ridden world?

- Why not have condoms for people engaging in risky sexual behavior?

We do have those things, because we care about people even when they engage in risky behavior, and we want to make them safer.

Safer is better.

@22, Jackkay wrote, "InSite does not control what the dealers cut heroin with." Correct. Only replacing the black market with a system of strict regulation and control like we use for alcohol and prescription medications is likely to solve that problem. Safe consumption spaces like InSite in Vancouver and the 100-or-so SCSs in Europe do not aim to solve that problem.

Jackkay continued, "One would almost think Fentanyl might make addicts think twice about their addiction, but it doesn't." One might have thought the same about the perceived risks of "bathtub gin" during alcohol prohibition, but they would have been mistaken.

"Look around our city. You would need a safe site in every community center and then some. One on every block in some areas." Yes, please. Let's put them everywhere they are needed. People are dying of accidental overdose at a rater of nearly one per day in King County. This is a public health emergency.

"And still that doesn't guarantee they will be used." Correct. Regardless, those who do use them will be safer than if these public health facilities did not exist.

Safer is better.

'Cause nothing says suburbia than to keep trying to wrap that bubble around you!

I hope they do ban them.