First Safe Injection Sites For Heroin Addicts To Open

New safe injection sites will open soon in Seattle and King County, Washington in an attempt to help stop heroin overdose deaths in the U.S.

Safe Injection Sites

While these proposed injection centers have created controversy. State officials feel that something more needs to be done in order to help save lives from the heroin epidemic.

Each safe injection site will have nurses on hand that will be watching over the heroin users in case of an overdose. Each user will be able to obtain clean needles and have a safe space to inject their drugs.

The center will also provide testing for HIV, hepatitis, as well as other medical services.

There is concern that with the opening of safe injection sites. The state would simply be enabling addiction and appear to be supportive of continued drug use. However, the effectiveness of safe injection sites can be seen in Vancouver, Canada, where there have been 5,000 overdose deaths. These were prevented because nurses were able to intervene in time.

Additional signs of effectiveness can be seen in a medical monitoring site in Boston, MA which since April, has offered medical supervision to drug users who have injected before arriving at the facility, and subsequently seen about 10 percent of those users choose to enter drug treatment.

Ultimately

lives need to be saved and right now America is struggling to prevent overdose deaths from happening to heroin addicts.

“The goal is to prevent overdose deaths,” Jay Unick, medical epidemiologist at the University of Maryland, explained to BuzzFeed News. “There is overwhelming evidence that safe injection sites do that.”

According to the Seattle Times, heroin overdose deaths rose by 58% in Seattle/King County in 2014. That’s the largest increase in 17 years.

The truth is that people are dying from heroin and until some radical changes are made. So many more will continue to die. When an increase in HIV cases from shared needle use started to pose a public health crisis in the 1980’s, the needle exchange program came into play. This was controversial too, but in the end it did help stop the spread of HIV across the nation.

Over the next several years, officials plan on monitoring the safe injection sites to see how many people use the facility. How many overdoses have been prevented, and if any of the heroin addicts have attended treatment according to The Washington Post.

Recovery From Disease Of Addiction

The disease of addiction affects the mind as well as the body. So, therefore it requires the addict to not only admit they have a problem, but do the work to recover. Detox, treatment, and a 12-step programs of recovery have been and continue to be successful at helping an addict stay clean and sober long-term.

However, they have to put in the work if they are to be successful. It would be difficult to maintain recovery if all they did was go to treatment. The addicted must maintain their sobriety through a life-long program and that is what some people may not understand.

Related: The 5 Stages of Recovery from Addiction

If you or someone you know is struggling with heroin addiction. There is help and hope outside of using. You can get and stay clean and sober long-term, and without a substitute like suboxone or methadone.

We can show you how and you can start today. Contact us now at 1-800-861-1768 for more information.