NYC safe injection sites 'make sure you don’t die’
Jose Collado and Steve Baez are best friends and on this day, like most days recently, they are at one of New York City's new "overdose prevention centers." After years of shooting up on streets and rooftops, Collado and Baez are now in one of the first two facilities in the country where local officials are allowing illegal drug use in order to make it less deadly. Equipped and staffed to reverse overdoses, New York City's new, privately run "overdose prevention centers" are a bold and contested response to a storm tide of opioid overdose deaths nationwide. Supporters say the sites — also known as safe injection sites or supervised consumption spaces — are humane, realistic responses to the deadliest drug crisis in U.S. history. Critics see them as illegal and defeatist answers to the harm that drugs wreak on users and communities.
As featured on
Lawmakers in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada are considering allowing what are often called “safe injection sties" where people can use drugs under the supervision of trained staff who could reverse an overdose.
