Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Cities with supervised drug use sites saw the same amount of overdoses.
As America’s drug crisis has claimed the lives of nearly a million people over the past decade, cities and states, supported by the federal government under the Biden administration, have embraced new strategies meant to keep people who use drugs alive long enough for them to get help.
The most visible of these are supervised consumption sites. Also known as harm reduction centers, these facilities provide people with a place to use their drug of choice in the presence of staff armed with overdose-reversing naloxone. New York City and Rhode Island have allowed SCSs to be established, and Minnesota is expected to do the same. Cities around the world have also embraced them, and unapproved sites operate in other American cities.
Supporters of SCSs say that amid an unprecedented increase in overdose deaths, communities should do whatever they can to save lives. They’re not wrong. If SCSs measurably reduced deaths, they might be worth any problems they cause. One of us even argued as much in 2019.
The problem is these facilities don’t work, disrupt communities and are clearly illegal under federal law.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Washington Post (paywall)
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Kevin A. Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Bush and Obama administrations, is the CEO of the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions.