San Francsico considers opening a place for drug addicts to with supervision
City health officials in San Francisco are considering opening a place for addicts to use drugs such as heroin and cocaine under the supervision of nurses, reports the Associated Press in the MN Daily. Called a safe-injection site, this is a step to try to reduce the number of fatal overdoses each year.
A daylong forum on the topic was held Thursday and included discussion about the safe-injection site in Vancouver, the only one in North America. Officials know getting a facility like this off the ground could take years because of legal issues.
The deputy director of demand reduction for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Bertha Madras, doesn't think this idea is good. "The underlying philosophy is, 'We accept drug addiction, we accept the state of affairs as acceptable,' " Madras said. "This is a form of giving up."
Grant Colfax, director of HIV prevention for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, estimates that there are between 11,000 and 15,000 intravenous drug users in San Francisco. One in seven emergency calls handled by city paramedics from July 2006 to July 2007 were overdose related.
Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors support the move towards opening a safe-injection center.