Parker knew that community programs that distributed clean syringes in Europe had been having success at preventing HIV transmission. But in the US, the notion of giving drug users sterile instruments to inject their drugs was met with resistance by both high-ranking government officials as well as local community leaders. From their perspective, supporting what became known as needle or syringe exchange programs also meant supporting — or even encouraging — injection drug use. Government funds couldn’t go near such heresy, despite evidence showing that such programs do not increase drug use. [...]
In 2016, over 60,000 people in the US died from drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For context, that’s more people dead than during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 2005. Having reported on the overdose crisis for years, I fear these deaths aren’t being comprehended. These aren’t just numbers from a government report. Just two weeks ago in Chicago, my friend Mike, a 27-year-old getting his master’s in social work at the University of Chicago, died from an overdose. He’ll be counted as one among tens of thousands who died in 2017, which is expected to surpass the death rate from 2016. [...]
The number one driver of overdose deaths in America isn’t prescription painkillers or even heroin; it’s illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a super-potent opioid several times stronger than heroin. Ciccarone has told me that we’re no longer in the midst of an “opioid epidemic,” so much as what he calls a “poisoning crisis.” The heroin supply is more dangerous than it’s ever been, which makes the need for safe injecting spaces all the more urgent.
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