A city-funded center where nurses can supervise IV drug users

Who doesn't know someone with a drug problem? And what intravenous drug user has never dipped into surreality using a dirty needle or risking an overdose? In San Francisco, drug reform advocates and public health officials met last week to discuss an idea: they want to create a city-funded center where nurses can supervise IV drug users as they shoot up, and then monitor them to prevent complications from potential overdose.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, about 150 people gathered including folks from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Harm Reduction Coalition, and San Francisco General Hospital's Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program. Public health officials and private foundations are openly discussing the establishment of an injection center, but not one San Francisco politician has stepped up to support the cause.

That's odd, because the Associated Press reports that drug overdoses accounted for about 15 percent of emergency calls for city paramedics last year, and public health officials estimate there are 11,000 to 15,000 IV drug users in San Francisco. Most of these folks are men who live on the streets, and, of course, have no health insurance, so the situation is likely to get worse. However, Mayor Gavin Newsom's spokesman told AP that Newsom "is not inclined to support this program because, quite frankly, it may create more problems than it supposedly addresses."

Starting up an injection center is a radical idea, or is it? Sixty-five facilities exist in 27 cities in eight countries, but no other U.S. cities have considered creating one. One such center is way north of San Francisco in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Insite is North America's first legal supervised injection site, which began as a scientific pilot program in 2003. It has been successful, and is a safe place where people can go to inject drugs and connect with health care professionals and addiction services.

The Chronicle describes the three rules at Insite: no violence, no dealing, and no injecting anybody but yourself. Nurses and counselors are on duty, and clean needles are available to prevent HIV and hepatitis C transmission.

 

That all sounds fair and good, but the question is (and this is always the big question when it comes to housing drug addiction services): Who will vote to open an injection center in their neighborhood? San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is not convinced a new social services center would be welcome in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood heavily populated by IV drug users.

My question to you, Reader, is this: Would you vote to open injection center on your block? Really, would you?

Juliana Luecking, aka Queen Juliana, is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Life & Love.