SIFMA NOW, a grassroots organization advocating for the legislation of supervised injection facilities (SIFs) held a model installation of one of these facilities at Boston University’s Medical Campus Wednesday in an effort to spread awareness, educate and demonstrate the benefits of SIFs.
SIFs are sites designed for individuals who are using drugs to do so more safely, thereby making the chances of death through overdose or infection less likely. BU School of Public Health professor Richard Saitz wrote in an email that SIFs may connect individuals to treatment and rehabilitation resources they may not be able to find themselves.
“SIFs, or perhaps more aptly named overdose prevention sites, provide a location, staff and supplies [that] can reduce the risks associated with injection of illicit drugs and can potentially engage people with addiction with treatment and other recovery-related resources,” Saitz wrote.
Saitz said there were many ways SIFs aimed at making the drug-taking process safer.
“People are provided with clean space, a mirror that helps staff identify anyone who may have overdosed, sterile equipment including needles and staff to help connect them with care,” Saitz said.
Because SIFs could offer a monitored observation space to the most vulnerable users, they have gained increasing support from advocates within the health care community.
Katrina Ciraldo, a doctor at the South Boston Community Health Center and an organizer at SIFMA NOW, said in a phone interview that introducing SIFs into communities was an urgent issue, especially in light of the emergent opioid epidemic.
“We have medicine that reverses opioid overdose,” Ciraldo said. “So, it’s 100 percent completely preventable death. The very dangerous thing is people using alone, because if you’re alone, nobody can give you Narcan.”
In describing the challenges she faces in providing care to her patients, Ciraldo said that she is not currently able to prevent some of the adverse situations some of her patients arrive in.
“We know our patients are using drugs because they come in with infections, they come in with overdose,” Ciraldo said. “We know that they’re using drugs, but we’re basically telling them they have to do it in secret.”
SIFMA NOW testified at a Massachusetts State House hearing on Gov. Charlie Baker’s “Opioid 2.0” bill, saying the bill “ignored mounting evidence that supervised injection facilities save lives, money and improve health” according to a SIFMA NOW press release.
Ciraldo elaborated on the stance of the organization, which invited Baker to their event at the medical campus.
“We welcome Governor Baker to come learn about this because he has made comments in the media that he doesn’t believe the evidence is strong enough to support supervised injecting,” Ciraldo said. “Governor Baker’s stance is, we feel, a little bit ideological instead of evidence-based.”
Aubri Esters, a co-founder and organizer with SIFMA NOW, echoed Ciraldo’s position, saying Massachusetts’ opioid problem is reversible. She also voiced the need for change in public policy.
“I’m sick of losing close friends and people I care about to the overdose epidemic when it is entirely preventable,” Esters said. “But punitive drug policy and ignorant public and elected officials keep Massachusetts and Boston in the Dark Ages when it comes to harm reduction services for people who inject drugs.”
Several BU students shared different opinions about how SIFs can help curb the effects of the opioid epidemic.
College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Karishma Arora wrote in a message that she thinks there is definitively a problem with drugs in the United States, and that SIFs can be a step toward recovery.
“I am a proponent of safe injection facilities,” Arora wrote. “People are going to do drugs anyway, so it’s better to be safe.”
CAS junior Anjelica Montalvo said she believed the criminalization of drug users contributes to the problem. She said what matters most is that people have access to the resources they need to survive.
“If it’s there for people to have safe areas where they do what they need to do, I’m kind of just for it,” Montalvo said. “If there’s a way to keep people safe in more places, then absolutely.”
Sargent College freshman Shannon Gallup said the opioid crisis is a systemic issue that spans from many different factors. Gallup said she thinks SIFs may run into trouble with seeing widespread community adoption.
“It’d be best to start small and see the response,” Gallup said. “You don’t want to start something on a large scale and have it fail and then have that be used as an excuse to not support more programs to help these people.”
