A sign on the wall reads ‘This site save lives’ in Spanish and English at an overdose prevention center at OnPoint NYC in New York earlier this year.
ALBANY, New York — The only two overdose prevention centers operating in the U.S, both located in New York, report that they have successfully intervened in some 600 overdoses in their first year of operation.
The record achieved by OnPoint NYC, the nonprofit agency that runs the two supervised narcotics consumption sites in New York City, is being cited by advocates who contend such programs have demonstrated they can help reduce what has been a growing toll of fatal overdoses in both New York and the nation.
Data released last week by the state Department of Health revealed New York experienced a 14 percent increase in 2021 overdose deaths involving opioids over the prior year.
In the counties outside New York City, a region that includes all of upstate New York, there were a total of 2,630 overdose fatalities. Many of the deaths, according to public health authorities, involve the mixing of illegal fentanyl with heroin or other opioids.
The advocates say the overdoses need an effective public health response, contending that having police investigate drug users is a waste of resources that has not made a dent in neither the demand nor supply of illicit drugs and prescription opioids available on the black market.
Legislation filed at the statehouse would sanction the operation of “safe” consumption sites beyond the two pilot facilities now operating in New York City. One is in Washington Heights while the second is in East Harlem.
The bill has majority house sponsors in the persons of Sen. Gustavo Rivera, the influential chairman of the Senate Health Committee, and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal.
VOCAL-NY, an advocacy organization, is championing the legislation, while also attempting to convince Gov. Kathy Hochul to use her executive authority to allow such facilities to operate, citing the rising toll of overdose deaths across New York.
As for the legislative approach, John Coppola, a veteran lobbyist for an umbrella organization representing treatment providers, the New York State Association of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers, said he believes support at the statehouse for allowing an expansion of safe injection facilities is growing.
Jasmine Budnella, director of drug policy for VOCAL-NY, told CNHI the 600 reported successful interventions at the OnPoint NYC facilities exceeds the projections made before those sites opened last November. The sites have been authorized by New York City’s government.
Including the fatalities recorded in New York City, the more than 5,600 overdose deaths statewide in 2021, she said, should never have happened.
“The thing that is infuriating about this is we know that every overdose is preventable if people are there who can respond to the overdose,” Budnella said.
She said there is a burgeoning awareness that the response to illicit drug use several decades ago was doomed to fail because the demand for those substances was not seen as a public health issue.
The successes so far at the OnPoint sites have been realized because the staffers at those facilities “meet people with compassion and care” and serve as a resource for addicts who recognize they need to join recovery programs, Budnella said.
She estimated about 80 percent of the state’s prison population has a substance abuse disorder and once they are released from state custody the chances of them overdosing is “very, very high,” given the dangerous substances they will encounter on the streets.
Contacted in Schoharie County, in a rural region hard hit by a string of fatal overdoses, Assemblyman Chris Tague, said he was initially opposed to the proposal to sanction drug consumption sites, and still has reservations about the idea.
But he added he is trying to keep an open mind, and is eager to see the data that emerges from the pilot programs now underway.
“I’m a big proponent of organizations that are doing everything they can to get these folks off these drugs, get them healthy, and help get them rehabilitated and back out into society,” Tague said.
Tague said he believes limits should be imposed on how often individual addicts use the facilities so they aren’t being used as lairs for people who have no intention of trying to kick the habit.
Rivera’s bill states that many intravenous drug users go to public places such as parks or subway stations to inject narcotics, discarding syringes which then pose public health risks, contributing to higher infection rates for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and other negative public health outcomes.