BUFFALO, NY - We have seen safe injection site prototypes here in Buffalo and experts touting their use in Canada and other countries to stem the staggering fatal OD rate from opioid usage. Those injection sites are also being studied in New York, Ithaca, and other cities. Now the New York State Academy of Family Physicians is suggesting supervised injection sites as a safer alternative and claiming nearly 40 years of research from other countries.
Dr. William Klepack says addicts are "able to inject the substance that they bring into the facility in a safe environment where an overdose can be reversed with professional care and can be referred for treatment for their addiction. In millions of client encounters globally there have been no deaths due to overdoses. They also achieve significant reduction in medical illnesses."
While Erie County's Health Commissioner agrees injection sites may cut the OD rate, there's other points to consider like exposure to heroin or other drugs usually laced with fentanyl to give an enhanced but often a deadlier high.
Dr. Gale Burstein expresses her concern this way: "A supervised injection facility, I mean, we don't know what they're taking. And we don't know what their outcome will be once they leave the doors. Whether they'll still continue to be high, they're still continuing to use and they're still continuing to be at risk of overdosing. So...that's why I'd really like to see us put our resources into treatment programs."
Burstein also stresses more treatment clinics for addiction and referrals in ER's for overdose patients.
"The most efficient way that we can link them into medication assisted treatment would be buprenonorphine or methadone I think is really where we should be focusing our resources."