美国国家公共电台 NPR Watchful Eyes: At Peer-Run Injection Sites, Drug Users Help Each Other Stay Safe

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Watchful¹ Eyes: At Peer-Run Injection Sites, Drug Users Help Each Other Stay Safe

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To prevent overdose deaths, several U.S. cities are considering opening safe injection sites where users can get high under medical supervision². Officials are looking to Canadian cities like Vancouver for guidance. Authorities there have run supervised drug use sites for years. And now more of those sites are being run by people with experience using drugs. Gabriel Spitzer of member station KNKX has our story. And a warning - it includes descriptions of drug use that some listeners might find disturbing.

GABRIEL SPITZER, BYLINE³: In the back of a storefront in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighborhood, there's a small room with a wide glass window.

HUGH LAMPKIN: So this is the injection room we have. There's three tables, two chairs per table.

SPITZER: Hugh Lampkin is overseeing this supervised injection site. He explains how a trained attendant keeps watch and administers an antidote⁵ if somebody ODs. The attendant hands a large mirror to a wiry guy with a black goatee.

LAMPKIN: One of the big things is - they call it jugging. You know, after a while, it's really hard to find veins⁶ on your legs or your arm, so you have your jugular⁷ at your throat.

SPITZER: This is an especially dangerous practice. The user could easily hit an artery⁸ and cause a stroke.

LAMPKIN: We try and discourage it. But if they're set on doing it, why not give them the education to do it properly?

SPITZER: Plenty of people worry that supervised injection sites enable or even encourage really risky⁹ behavior. But staff here say people would be doing it anyway with fewer precautions. That's the idea behind harm reduction. In this case, that means teaching the heroin¹⁰ user to watch what he's doing. He props¹¹ the mirror up on a chair, sinks to all fours and examines his throat closely. Moments later, with the attendant watching through glass, he slips the needle in.

Medical professionals oversee⁴ many supervised injection sites, but this site is different. It's run by the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. Supervisor¹² Hugh Lampkin has been a heroin user off and on for most of his life. He says the public health system here was overwhelmed by new potent¹³ opioids and cheap prices that caused a spike¹⁴ in the death toll¹⁵. So IV drug users launched their own sites where they supervise one another.

MARK LYSYSHYN: These community agencies and groups of peers and associations of drug users - they're the ones who are making the innovations. They're telling us what to do.

SPITZER: Mark Lysyshyn is with Vancouver Coastal¹⁶ Health, a government-run public health agency. They're the main source of funding for overdose prevention sites, which are technically¹⁷ still illegal, although Vancouver police say they support them. In the U.S., the Drug Enforcement Agency says these sites facilitate illegal activity and warns that anyone operating one could face legal action. But in Vancouver, they enjoy wide support, and people who use them say they're saving lives.

DARREN: Without this place, people would be dead all over.

SPITZER: Darren goes to an injection site supervised by peers almost every day. We are only using first names for people who may still be buying illegal drugs.

DARREN: This is a great place, and it saved me a couple of days ago. I did a shot of meth, and I was crying, and these guys really care about you here. They really do.

SPITZER: Some users still have mixed feelings. Cameron says he was a successful businessman before he got addicted¹⁸ to heroin. He's a volunteer and supports these sites but says working at one has had its costs.

CAMERON: Whether you see it or not, it does. It affects you when you see somebody that's almost dead. And he gets up, and then he does it again.

SPITZER: Officials in Vancouver say even as overdose deaths have mounted, not one person has died in any of the medical or peer-supervised injection sites. The chief coroner of British Columbia says without them, the death toll would be three times higher. For NPR News, I'm Gabriel Spitzer in Vancouver, Canada.