Boston Mayor Martin Walsh visited several “safe injection” sites in Montreal and Toronto on Jan. 17 and 18. These facilities permit people to use illicit drugs under the supervision of experienced medical professionals. The sites have been operating for about 18 months in these Canadian cities with the goal of preventing overdose deaths.
“I was really moved by the process of these safe consumption sites, the thoughtfulness of them,” Walsh said to the Harm Reduction Commission, a group that is investigating the feasibility of creating safe injection sites in Massachusetts.
There are at least 100 safe injection sites in operation around the world, located mostly in Europe, Canada and Australia.
Supporters of safe injection sites claim that these facilities save lives, reduce stigma and decrease the harm caused by the opioid epidemic. However, critics claim that such facilities encourage further drug use and bring crime to the areas in which they are located.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was skeptical about the idea of safe injection sites in testimony before the state legislature’s joint Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery Committee.
“The biggest problem I have with it is as far as the data I see is concerned,” Baker said, “it has not demonstrated any legitimate success in creating a pathway to treatment.”
Yet a 2014 review of 75 studies determined that safe injection sites decrease overdoses and improve access to health services. Moreover, safe injection sites were associated with less public drug use, and there was no correlation found with impacts on crime or drug use.
Baker’s criticism is misplaced. Saving someone’s life — whether they suffer from addiction or not — is important and morally good. In 2017, there were 2,061 estimated opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts. If there is a way to reduce deaths, the state should always investigate the possibility of implementing the new idea.
One of the longest-running safety injection sites, called Insite, was founded in Vancouver in 2003. Insite has operated and been researched for more than 15 years. A study found that the site did not increase or encourage drug use.
However, safe injection sites pose serious costs and legal risks. Philadelphia is moving forward with plans to create safe injection sites, even though it violates federal law. And because of the illegality, it would be near impossible for health insurance to cover any of the sites’ expenses.
Yet illegality in and of itself is not a valid reason to not create safe injection sites. Any government’s priority should be to protect the lives of its residents.
More important is this — if either Boston or Massachusetts as a whole created safe injection sites, it would be at a huge cost to taxpayers. There are other programs, such as increasing public access to drugs such as naloxone that are more cost-effective ways to reduce opioid deaths.
Increasing funding for state rehabilitation programs would be a legal way to not only reduce deaths, but to also reduce illegal drug use in general. Until the federal government begins to support safe injection sites, it seems as though the costs and risks outweigh the potential benefits.
