The Department of Justice announced in February that it is considering allowing safe consumption sites — also called supervised injection sites or overdose prevention centers — in cities that wish to experiment with a new way of combating the overdose crisis. New York City recently became the first city in America to open safe consumption sites.
The debate over safe consumption sites should be familiar to Philadelphians because the city was the site of the first attempted safe consumption site: Safehouse. Safehouse was blocked by a federal court and opposed by some community members and some City Council members.
While Safehouse may no longer have problems with the feds, it will need to build support in the community to find a location where it can help the city’s drug users. Philadelphians should support Safehouse because we owe it to opioid users. Overdose rates in Philadelphia remain near record highs, and it’s time to do something about it.
