There’s a renewed push to legalize overdose prevention facilities on Beacon Hill, with advocates touting supervised drug use as hurt prevention.
That relies on how one defines hurt.
At these facilities, skilled well being care employees would supervise people who use pre-obtained illicit medicine — they usually might intervene and stop deadly overdoses.
Sure, addicts might keep away from overdosing and stay one other day — one other day through which they’d steal or prostitute themselves to purchase medicine, one other day through which opioids might additional injury their thoughts and physique, and one other day to stumble via the degradation of a life dominated by medicine.
The actual winners? Drug sellers and traffickers. Their clientele might have entry to rehabilitative providers via these facilities, however that cry for assist might not come for a very long time. In the meantime, they’re prepared prospects for these “pre-obtained” medicine.
In these progressive elements, the legislation is to be adopted besides in case you don’t prefer it. Due to this fact, these proposals would offer authorized protections for employees, drug customers accessing the amenities, authorities officers and different stakeholders. As a result of the medicine being injected are, in fact, unlawful.
Rep. Mindy Domb, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Psychological Well being, Substance Use and Restoration, mentioned Massachusetts final 12 months recorded fewer than 2,000 deadly overdoses, breaking a grim years-long pattern.
Sure, naloxone is an incredible factor, and distribution of Narcan has saved many lives from overdoses. However making drug dependancy safer with the added internet of Narcan is like placing a bandage on a deep wound.
One can’t struggle the opioid disaster by prolonging dependancy. Maintaining the demand for medicine fuels the provision and the crime that comes with trafficking. And the drug market solely will get worse.
Nitazenes have entered the chat.
Final 12 months, a state-funded drug checking program in Massachusetts has discovered opioids as much as 25 occasions stronger than fentanyl, based on WBUR. In a bulletin, public well being officers say the variety of drug samples testing optimistic for nitazenes is small — however rising rapidly.
“The extra that we crack down on issues like fentanyl and heroin, that’s going to result in the rise of different issues which might be infiltrating the drug provide,” mentioned Sarah Mackin, director of hurt discount on the Boston Public Well being Fee.
“Nitazenes is simply the latest factor to return via,” after xylazine, the animal tranquilizer present in 9% of overdose deaths in 2023.
Nonetheless, an investigation of information from hospital emergency departments printed by the JAMA Community discovered it typically takes extra doses of naloxone to reverse an overdose when nitazene is concerned than it could take to reverse a fentanyl overdose. Additional research is required.
Retaining the drug cycle going, nonetheless “safely,” isn’t a step in the fitting route, it’s simply one other foot ahead on the dependancy treadmill.
We’d like dependancy discount, stat. We have to fund packages reminiscent of Boston Medical Heart’s Sooner Paths to Therapy, its substance use dysfunction pressing care program. And we’d like extra of them.
True hurt discount comes from serving to addicts get clear to allow them to stay full, productive lives.
