Opioid addiction and the most controversial bathroom in New York
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2stepz_ahead
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Of all the provocative strategies to reduce harm from opioid addiction, the one that I am about to describe is near the top.
Over the past several months, hardly anyone I spoke to about the abuse of opioids in the United States, including pain pills and heroin, had a neutral point of view about what is happening in a small but important corner of the larger epidemic.
The place is where a former security guard named Hector Mata became an expert at reversing overdoses and probably saved 25 lives in the process. It is not a hospital or a clinic.
Mata's infirmary is the Corner Project, a syringe exchange program that began operating in the New York neighborhood of Washington Heights, which houses a bathroom where drug users can more safely inject heroin.
On first glance, there is not much that is special about this bathroom except that there is someone checking in on an intercom every three minutes to make sure the user is still conscious.
"A moral obligation"
If a user doesn't respond on the check-in, Mata, or someone similarly trained, will press a button to unlock the door and rush in, armed with a syringe full of naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, and hopefully reverse the effects of the opioid drugs. After seven years and at least 25 overdoses, he says he has never failed.
While to some people, this sounds like a "consumption room," or a safe injection site, the staff here say it is simply a bathroom. After all, injection sites aren't legal under US law.
Opioid overdoses shorten US life expectancy by 2½ months
Opioid overdoses shorten US life expectancy by 2½ months
I sat down with the Corner Project's director, Liz Evans, and asked her just how a place like this legally exists. She told me that public bathrooms are the frontline of the opioid epidemic. "People are dying in those bathrooms, and so there's an acknowledgment that as a syringe exchange provider, we have a moral obligation to make sure that people don't die in our building." And so, the Corner Project has implemented a safety net to make sure that people don't die from overdoses in the bathroom in their building. Everything in this story is a murky gray.
Perhaps the story of the Corner Project could have been predicted. A heroin addict goes to a needle exchange, obtains clean needles and immediately heads to the bathroom to inject drugs. After all, according to recent studies in New York City, nearly two-thirds of drug users visit places like abandoned buildings, cars, and public bathrooms to inject drugs.
The Corner Project started out as a street based community outreach group in 2005. In 2009, when the Corner Project moved to its current brick and mortar location, the bathroom was just a matter of convenience for clients. Within a short time, however, there was an overdose in the bathroom, followed by another and so on.
US heroin deaths jump 533% since 2002, report says
US heroin deaths jump 533% since 2002, report says
Without a system in place, the workers at Corner Project would hear a characteristic thud from someone passing out in the bathroom, make a mad scramble for the keys and then work to revive the person. Though they were mostly successful, it was always frightening.
The Corner Project could have simply closed the bathroom or searched people before they used the facility, but the workers chose to do neither.
Instead, they kept it open and put in safety measures, like an intercom system, timers, and naloxone to help prevent overdoses. They stayed open knowing that if they closed their doors addicts would simply find another public restroom to use their drugs, far from the people who might be able to save them.
And with that, the Corner Project pushed the limits of harm reduction in the United States.
Since last year, the New York State Department of Health has followed the Corner Project's lead and instituted regulations and recommended procedures on how to best prevent overdoses in the places where users are likely to use: syringe exchange bathrooms.
Criminalization vs. rehabilitation
In the great debate of criminalization versus rehabilitation, many commonly held assumptions have been torn to shreds. For example, some believed the legalization of drugs like marijuana would lead to increased use. Yet in Colorado, which legalized recreational ? , teen marijuana use has dropped. When it comes to opioids, the number of people who overdose and die from legal prescription painkillers is about equal to the number of people who die from illicit drugs like heroin.
Another commonly held belief is that a safe injection site would implicitly condone the use of drugs and lead to increased use. And yet we now know that theory starts to fray when we look at what has happened at the Corner Project and at a place called InSite in Vancouver, Canada, which Liz Evans also helped found.
Started as a pilot project in 2003, InSite is one of only two legal supervised drug injection sites in Canada. They are the only two in North America. Though the centers don't provide any illicit drugs, the medical staff are there to provide first aid, including naloxone for overdoses, addiction counseling and mental health assistance. InSite has seen more than 3 million people since it opened, treated over 6,000 overdoses and not had a single person die.
Furthermore, a 2011 Lancet study revealed that in the neighborhoods surrounding InSite, in the two years after it opened, there was a 35% reduction in overdose deaths from the two and a half years before it opened, compared with a 9% drop in the rest of Vancouver. Although it is unclear the impact of InSite on decreasing the total number of drugs users, it has led to increased admissions for addiction treatment and detoxification.
And that also means cleaner communities. Streets and public restrooms aren't littered with needles and other drug paraphernalia. In fact, a recent survey of drug users from an undisclosed safe injection site in the United States found that if they hadn't used the site's facilities, over 90% of the users would be using in public bathrooms or out on the street.
Canada's safe injection center brings drug addicts 'out of the alleys'
These statistics are now the subject of dozens of studies in medical journals and were also recited to me as Mata showed me around the Corner Project's bathroom.
But he emphasized again, "It's not a safe injection site," he told me. He points out that unlike InSite, the Corner Project doesn't have actual medical professionals monitoring the bathroom. In fact, if a doctor or nurse were to actually supervise its bathrooms, he or she could lose their license. He also doesn't care for the term "consumption room," which has been around in Western Europe since the 1990s.
the rest at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/25/health/opioid-addiction-bathroom-safe-injection-site/index.html
Over the past several months, hardly anyone I spoke to about the abuse of opioids in the United States, including pain pills and heroin, had a neutral point of view about what is happening in a small but important corner of the larger epidemic.
The place is where a former security guard named Hector Mata became an expert at reversing overdoses and probably saved 25 lives in the process. It is not a hospital or a clinic.
Mata's infirmary is the Corner Project, a syringe exchange program that began operating in the New York neighborhood of Washington Heights, which houses a bathroom where drug users can more safely inject heroin.
On first glance, there is not much that is special about this bathroom except that there is someone checking in on an intercom every three minutes to make sure the user is still conscious.
"A moral obligation"
If a user doesn't respond on the check-in, Mata, or someone similarly trained, will press a button to unlock the door and rush in, armed with a syringe full of naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, and hopefully reverse the effects of the opioid drugs. After seven years and at least 25 overdoses, he says he has never failed.
While to some people, this sounds like a "consumption room," or a safe injection site, the staff here say it is simply a bathroom. After all, injection sites aren't legal under US law.
Opioid overdoses shorten US life expectancy by 2½ months
Opioid overdoses shorten US life expectancy by 2½ months
I sat down with the Corner Project's director, Liz Evans, and asked her just how a place like this legally exists. She told me that public bathrooms are the frontline of the opioid epidemic. "People are dying in those bathrooms, and so there's an acknowledgment that as a syringe exchange provider, we have a moral obligation to make sure that people don't die in our building." And so, the Corner Project has implemented a safety net to make sure that people don't die from overdoses in the bathroom in their building. Everything in this story is a murky gray.
Perhaps the story of the Corner Project could have been predicted. A heroin addict goes to a needle exchange, obtains clean needles and immediately heads to the bathroom to inject drugs. After all, according to recent studies in New York City, nearly two-thirds of drug users visit places like abandoned buildings, cars, and public bathrooms to inject drugs.
The Corner Project started out as a street based community outreach group in 2005. In 2009, when the Corner Project moved to its current brick and mortar location, the bathroom was just a matter of convenience for clients. Within a short time, however, there was an overdose in the bathroom, followed by another and so on.
US heroin deaths jump 533% since 2002, report says
US heroin deaths jump 533% since 2002, report says
Without a system in place, the workers at Corner Project would hear a characteristic thud from someone passing out in the bathroom, make a mad scramble for the keys and then work to revive the person. Though they were mostly successful, it was always frightening.
The Corner Project could have simply closed the bathroom or searched people before they used the facility, but the workers chose to do neither.
Instead, they kept it open and put in safety measures, like an intercom system, timers, and naloxone to help prevent overdoses. They stayed open knowing that if they closed their doors addicts would simply find another public restroom to use their drugs, far from the people who might be able to save them.
And with that, the Corner Project pushed the limits of harm reduction in the United States.
Since last year, the New York State Department of Health has followed the Corner Project's lead and instituted regulations and recommended procedures on how to best prevent overdoses in the places where users are likely to use: syringe exchange bathrooms.
Criminalization vs. rehabilitation
In the great debate of criminalization versus rehabilitation, many commonly held assumptions have been torn to shreds. For example, some believed the legalization of drugs like marijuana would lead to increased use. Yet in Colorado, which legalized recreational ? , teen marijuana use has dropped. When it comes to opioids, the number of people who overdose and die from legal prescription painkillers is about equal to the number of people who die from illicit drugs like heroin.
Another commonly held belief is that a safe injection site would implicitly condone the use of drugs and lead to increased use. And yet we now know that theory starts to fray when we look at what has happened at the Corner Project and at a place called InSite in Vancouver, Canada, which Liz Evans also helped found.
Started as a pilot project in 2003, InSite is one of only two legal supervised drug injection sites in Canada. They are the only two in North America. Though the centers don't provide any illicit drugs, the medical staff are there to provide first aid, including naloxone for overdoses, addiction counseling and mental health assistance. InSite has seen more than 3 million people since it opened, treated over 6,000 overdoses and not had a single person die.
Furthermore, a 2011 Lancet study revealed that in the neighborhoods surrounding InSite, in the two years after it opened, there was a 35% reduction in overdose deaths from the two and a half years before it opened, compared with a 9% drop in the rest of Vancouver. Although it is unclear the impact of InSite on decreasing the total number of drugs users, it has led to increased admissions for addiction treatment and detoxification.
And that also means cleaner communities. Streets and public restrooms aren't littered with needles and other drug paraphernalia. In fact, a recent survey of drug users from an undisclosed safe injection site in the United States found that if they hadn't used the site's facilities, over 90% of the users would be using in public bathrooms or out on the street.
Canada's safe injection center brings drug addicts 'out of the alleys'
These statistics are now the subject of dozens of studies in medical journals and were also recited to me as Mata showed me around the Corner Project's bathroom.
But he emphasized again, "It's not a safe injection site," he told me. He points out that unlike InSite, the Corner Project doesn't have actual medical professionals monitoring the bathroom. In fact, if a doctor or nurse were to actually supervise its bathrooms, he or she could lose their license. He also doesn't care for the term "consumption room," which has been around in Western Europe since the 1990s.
the rest at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/25/health/opioid-addiction-bathroom-safe-injection-site/index.html
Comments
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crazy that people thought of this "insite" now.
how convenient
my people were animals an needed long jail sentences with no rehab
casper an nem get controlled get high sessions and rehab
being white with a problem really makes ? change now dont it -
Opioids been poppin. Word to Vietnam. The only difference now is white boys put it in pill form and recruited overworked, underpaid interns to push that ? through e.r. Visits. Now it’s lit to get zoned out on pills. Why? Because a mf with a degree gave the ok to put your name on a bottle of poison.
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You ain't know? Word to everything that white people are mad about now (economy, politics, social problems) that have been happening to everybody else forever but they didn't care cause it wasn't them. They're mad at 45 right now but he's only ? them like how every president before him has done us.2stepz_ahead wrote: »crazy that people thought of this "insite" now.
how convenient
my people were animals an needed long jail sentences with no rehab
casper an nem get controlled get high sessions and rehab
being white with a problem really makes ? change now dont it -
2stepz_ahead wrote: »crazy that people thought of this "insite" now.
how convenient
my people were animals an needed long jail sentences with no rehab
casper an nem get controlled get high sessions and rehab
being white with a problem really makes ? change now dont it
what I find crazy is that this was an issue back in the late 90's. We were saying all the same ? back then too "when it was black addicts and dealers, y'all threw us in prison. Now that it's white kids shootin up heroin y'all got compassion and understanding."
Now instead of white kids, it's white soccer moms and ? . White grandma at church got that monkey on her back. Now they really got compassion. They lockin up doctors for over prescribing pills but ain't puttin Becky in prison for being a junkie.
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I hate that when confronted about the Fullerton its met with...ok.ok.ok. but we are here now..
This is why I don't care.
People can say two wrongs don't make a right an be the bigger person...but whar about the community's destroyed? The families destroyed. The overdoses...the jails.....
Now its skipped over to speak about their problem.
Fukk em -
2stepz_ahead wrote: »crazy that people thought of this "insite" now.
how convenient
my people were animals an needed long jail sentences with no rehab
casper an nem get controlled get high sessions and rehab
being white with a problem really makes ? change now dont it
Bruh they change and create entire laws when something effects white people. ? like Katie's law or Amanda's law.SMH -
VulcanRaven wrote: »2stepz_ahead wrote: »crazy that people thought of this "insite" now.
how convenient
my people were animals an needed long jail sentences with no rehab
casper an nem get controlled get high sessions and rehab
being white with a problem really makes ? change now dont it
Bruh they change and create entire laws when something effects white people. ? like Katie's law or Amanda's law.SMH
Saw a meme a few months back.........or someone might've even mentioned it here, that said the quickest way to change the gun laws would be for every black person in America to join the NRA and apply for a conceal/carry permit.
Would love to see that happen.
Not necessarily for a change in the gun laws change, but just to see the hypocrisy. -
an put ? loads of money in their pocket.
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Greatest goal post movers in history. Everyone is growing tired of them. Read an article 2day a Chicago latina professor equated Algebra, Geometry and Trig to White Supremacy and said ? explaining it 2 the media. Times up!
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I have no compassion. This is white supremacy at it's best. I will never forgive nor forget the pain and suffering Blacks endured throughout the ? epidemic. We have communities that still haven't recovered from the military assault of the war on drugs.
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Greatest goal post movers in history. Everyone is growing tired of them. Read an article 2day a Chicago latina professor equated Algebra, Geometry and Trig to White Supremacy and said ? explaining it 2 the media. Times up!
yea i read that same ? ...was gonna post it but said fukk it -
I have no compassion. This is white supremacy at it's best. I will never forgive nor forget the pain and suffering Blacks endured throughout the ? epidemic. We have communities that still haven't recovered from the military assault of the war on drugs.
exactly...now they want all our help.
man fukk that.
who gonna give me family back?
? say ...but we need to fix the problem now....no..we dont.
my people are gone...my family broken. thank ? i had a mother and father that steered clear of that ? .
but my cousins an ? ...
nah......
you cacs gotta suffer now.
i will kindal drive right by an say....they are animals.
? it didnt get to gangs and broken hoods yet.....but it will -
Trump just invoked drought season and a certain opiod
Im guessing Roxy -
2stepz_ahead wrote: »I hate that when confronted about the Fullerton its met with...ok.ok.ok. but we are here now..
This is why I don't care.
People can say two wrongs don't make a right an be the bigger person...but whar about the community's destroyed? The families destroyed. The overdoses...the jails.....
Now its skipped over to speak about their problem.
Fukk em
Bruh I know you serious and everything but I read this in my Bernie Mac voice!
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konceptjones wrote: »2stepz_ahead wrote: »crazy that people thought of this "insite" now.
how convenient
my people were animals an needed long jail sentences with no rehab
casper an nem get controlled get high sessions and rehab
being white with a problem really makes ? change now dont it
what I find crazy is that this was an issue back in the late 90's. We were saying all the same ? back then too "when it was black addicts and dealers, y'all threw us in prison. Now that it's white kids shootin up heroin y'all got compassion and understanding."
Now instead of white kids, it's white soccer moms and ? . White grandma at church got that monkey on her back. Now they really got compassion. They lockin up doctors for over prescribing pills but ain't puttin Becky in prison for being a junkie.
exactly regans war on drugs and ? users being criminalized while white folk were free basin and snortin coke without the same stigma.... now they tryin to sympathize white pill users but ? gettin locked up for syrup and when then pop pills. -
When it's all said & done, white supremacy will see their roosters coming back home to hatch & I am loving every minute
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T. Sanford wrote: »When it's all said & done, white supremacy will see their roosters coming back home to hatch & I am loving every minute
This. I still need to see battering rams tear down they neighbors houses looking for drugs, wrong doors kicked in and regular folks harassed and stopped just for walking around. When it was ? its a war. But this pill ? is an epidemic FOH -
Well damn, I can feel the pain in most of you’ll posts. In this drug situation, I had no idea America was this racist towards people of color.
-
Well damn, I can feel the pain in most of you’ll posts. In this drug situation, I had no idea America was this racist towards people of color.
There is a system of oppression using drugs, bad water, poor education, police and ghettos to destroy black people. They also use the media and marketing in their schemes too. -
Well damn, I can feel the pain in most of you’ll posts. In this drug situation, I had no idea America was this racist towards people of color.
u know how many minorities lives were ruined cuz of ? jail time for being a addicted to ? ? how many folk locked up for weed? this some straight ? . hell look how they got methadone labs for heroine users... they aint do none of that ? for crackheads. -
VulcanRaven wrote: »Well damn, I can feel the pain in most of you’ll posts. In this drug situation, I had no idea America was this racist towards people of color.
There is a system of oppression using drugs, bad water, poor education, police and ghettos to destroy black people. They also use the media and marketing in their schemes too.Well damn, I can feel the pain in most of you’ll posts. In this drug situation, I had no idea America was this racist towards people of color.
u know how many minorities lives were ruined cuz of ? jail time for being a addicted to ? ? how many folk locked up for weed? this some straight ? . hell look how they got methadone labs for heroine users... they aint do none of that ? for crackheads.
It’s sickening. And now the pres aiming to fight drug epidemic because his kin is dying left and right. Can’t make this up.
Now I have a clearer view why the inner city of DC & Baltimore are affected by drugs and folks not getting proper treatment because of color. This is sad.
-
Well damn, I can feel the pain in most of you’ll posts. In this drug situation, I had no idea America was this racist towards people of color.
u know how many minorities lives were ruined cuz of ? jail time for being a addicted to ? ? how many folk locked up for weed? this some straight ? . hell look how they got methadone labs for heroine users... they aint do none of that ? for crackheads.
now you can legally sell weed.
now they can buy ? over the over the counter..with a prescription.
as long as they making money -
I've said this before and I'll say it againIbuprofen is the solution for heroin withdrawal
The chemical formula for ibuprofen is C13 H18 O2
The chemical formula for heroin is C21 H23 NO5
All you have to do is crush up some ibuprofen and sniff it. Ibuprofen doesn't get you high but it makes the withdrawal go away
Its that easy -
I heard about a city in New England that actually wants to ? a wing of the hospital where people can go and get high. The people monitor them so they will not overdose.
Found it!
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/01/468572534/bostons-heroin-users-will-soon-get-a-safer-place-to-be-high
So where is the safe ? house. It is called a prison. -
I feel y'all I really do and I think Cacs don't worry about other issues unless it affects them and it's ? up. But nobody made anyone smoke ? or do opioid these are grown ass people we are talking about . They chose to smoke ? and sell ? continually to chase that high or push that nice whip in the hood. So ? em too. But yes the excessive football numbers and punishment for using drugs and selling drugs is ridiculous
