Once unthinkable in US, drug shoot-up rooms get serious look

[fred v]

Source: The Associated Press

By DAVID KLEPPER
May. 8, 2016 9:46 PM EDT

Across the United States, heroin users have died in alleys behind convenience stores, on city sidewalks and in the bathrooms of fast-food joints — because no one was around to save them when they overdosed.

An alarming 47,000 American overdose deaths in 2014 — 60 percent from heroin and related painkillers like fentanyl — has pushed elected leaders from coast to coast to consider what was once unthinkable: government-sanctioned sites where users can shoot up under the supervision of a doctor or nurse who can administer an antidote if necessary.

"Things are getting out of control. We have to find things we can do for people who are addicted now," said New York state Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who is working on legislation to allow supervised injection sites that would also include space for treatment services. "The idea shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I don't see anyone else coming up with anything new and innovative."

Critics of the war on drugs have long talked about the need for a new approach to addiction, but the idea of allowing supervised injection sites is now coming from state lawmakers in New York, Maryland and California, along with city officials in Seattle, San Francisco and Ithaca, New York, who note that syringe exchanges were once controversial but now operate in 33 states.


Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/93726b5c81394e0ab787fcb92ceb3124/once-unthinkable-us-drug-shoot-rooms-get-serious-look

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See, now us white folks are dying, so it has become a Significant Problem.

[PSPS]

1. This analysis piece doesn't belong in LBN.

[fred v]

4. Check the Link: It's in Latest News

http://bigstory.ap.org/latest

[Bluenorthwest]

2. It's been white people more than other groups for years and years and years....

This is from 2008-
http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/2008/03/t20080312g.html

[Redwoods Red]

3. I don't think it's entirely fair to say this is because white people are dying now.

That may make it more politically palatable for some legislators, but drug law reformers have been working away for the past quarter-century to undo the madness of the war on drugs. The increasing receptiveness to safe injection sites is because of that, too.

[Warpy]

5. White people were dying in the 60s too. I lost a few friends to ODs. I miss them.

A place with clean water and bleach solution for the syringes, even exchange programs there, would save lives.

Moralists have been killing people for far too long by taking their punitive approach.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. "shoot-up rooms" is very pejorative, AP headline writer. "injection sites" has only 1 more letter.nt

[Wibly]

7. "Drug shoot-up rooms"!

Come on!
They're called "safe injection sites" and they do wonders stopping accidental overdoses (thus saving dollars on emergency services), are proven to slow the rate of infectious diseases like HIV, HEPC and numerous others, and they give addicts a lifeline from which to pursue recovery.
I understand the education system in the US is crumbling, but certainly three syllable words like "injection" are not beyond your literary lexicon!

[FLPanhandle]

8. Let 'em die is the approach the public has to the overdose problem.

I don't have the hope the article does.

BTW, the OP should edit their ending comment. It implies in the past only minorities died of OD and white deaths are something new. Not only is that completely wrong, but it's stupid.

[Odin2005]

9. "Drug shoot-up rooms", no bias there, so sir-ee!