Giving addicts a safe place to shoot up a step too far?

Look they are shooting up regardless of where. She should study addiction in addition to public health. And what about the public's health regarding needles? I can't take my children to any park in the city without doing a needle sweep first. At least in a safe injection site there will be someone promoting safe sharps handling.
So instead addicts shoot up in hiding, dispose dangerous needles haphazardly and OD because they're in some alley or parking lot.
I watch it everyday in Dorchester. Opioid pain killers are what has "normalized" opioid addiction, not a solution to a public health crisis.

I've lived in both Boston and Seattle now. The debate on the west coast over injection sites is raging too. Google it and you'll find a ton of news articles. My personal take is that Boston should treat Seattle like a cautionary tale, particularly in one respect: drug use is MUCH more normalized here. From what I have seen, you can shoot up in broad daylight on ANY neighborhood sidewalk here and no one will say boo. Why? Because the attitude is that addicts have a "right" to be there. While compassion is needed, too much of it simply enables addicts to continue recklessly, endangering themselves and others. Property crime and some other crimes are much higher in Seattle, needles and trash everywhere, etc (in spite of the city providing garbage pickup and sharps containers). Legalized injection just normalizes drug use even further, and this is the key problem with the concept. I have to agree with the statement Fitzgerald makes. Furthermore, the evidence out of Vancouver is also simply not compelling enough - there's still a huge number of ODs (one of many articles here. Legalized injection sounds great from a compassionate, liberal standpoint... but the numbers do not indicate it is a solution on its own. Tread carefully, Boston... don't go down the same path towards normalization.

Increasing drug- and opioid-involved overdose deaths nationally and locally is not news. What continues to baffle me is the response here in Boston.

Our current treatment system for substance use disorders is far from equitable and effective. We throw whatever the latest and greatest idea is up against the wall and look to see if it sticks. Harm reduction is the new normal and I support the expansion of many of the harm-reduction initiatives — needle exchange, methadone, injectable naltrexone and buprenorphine. But I also feel strongly that recovery and genuine hope for an ordinary life has been forgotten.

Safe Site on Albany Street is a place where addicts who have used drugs may come in to ride out their high in a Barcalounger under the watchful eye of an RN armed with oxygen, Narcan and other medical supports to interrupt an overdose. There is strong lobbying now for a safe injection facility for the same neighborhood, where an addict could bring his drugs into the site and inject under the watchful eye of nurses and other medical personnel.

I am opposed to safe injection facilities as they may be one of the highest forms of enabling. It’s essentially giving up hope on people who use IV drugs. One might even call this end-of-life or hospice care. The idea of such a facility takes away a person’s autonomy and essentially forces a social agenda that supports the normalization of IV drug use over active care and treatment.

Safe sites and safe injection facilities provide no motivation for addicts to consider giving up substances. It is an aberration of the original harm-reduction principles which were “to meet the person where they were at and support that part of them that wanted to live.” Is the goal of safe injection sites to make IV drug use safe and desirable? If so, then it is true that “the emperor has no clothes.”

People need a motive to stop using. A safe site provides no reason to consider not using. Avoidance of death is not a motive as evidenced by a comment from one of my patients who told me, “I have been Narcan’d 17 times … ”

It is important to be kind, sensitive and empathetic, but there is a downside to this enabling and paternalistic attempt to reach addicts. There are no “quick fixes.” We have lied to people telling them that we can remove their pain. Addiction causes suffering everywhere. Sobriety is not for everyone; it requires hard work, commitment and time. When the consequences of actions are removed as in the environment of a safe injection facility, then the very concept of human agency evaporates. Life has become meaningless, a vacuum in which people bounce from boredom to oblivion. Just take a look at the neighborhood around Mass Ave. and Albany Street. There is nothing to hope for, nothing to fear.

I want to make clear that I support harm reduction and consider SPOT at Boston HealthCare for the Homeless as harm reduction. I miss identified it as Safe Place. The complexities of the opioid crisis are multifaceted and it is important to be available to all voices and efforts to make positive changes for those seeking help. As others have noted since Long Island closed we have been sticking our fingers in a dime with little success. The nightmare at Albany and Mass Ave is a public shame we must all take responsibility for.

I quit using heroin because I decided to. Addiction is a personality flaw. If you don't want to stop you never will. Let them die, don't use narcan, don't help them think they have a disease, don't help them think this is ok, shoot up all you want then drag yourself into a dumpster to die. Good riddance.

Letting someone do what they want is "taking away their autonomy" and "forcing a social agenda" on someone? What kind of ass-backwards Orwellian speak is this?