Mayor of Ithaca wants to open supervised heroin injection facility

In order to save lives, the mayor of Ithaca, New York, wants his city to becomes the first in the United States to have an injection facility supervised by a nurse.

"Using heroin is bad for you," Svante Myrick told The Huffington Post. "Dying from an overdose is even worse. We have to keep people alive and get them the resources to get clean. They won't get those resources in public bathrooms and behind Dumpsters in alleys." In Canada and Europe, fatal overdoses are down thanks to such facilities, and Myrick says since nothing else has worked, this is worth a shot. "We can't continue to try the policies that have so badly failed to keep our friends and family alive and healthy," he said.

In New York, overdoses have soared, up from 215 in 2008 to 478 in 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Heroin use by 18- to 25-year-olds also climbed from 3.5 percent between 2002 and 2004 to 7.3 percent between 2011 and 2013. Myrick has been working on his plan for the past 18 months, and it includes opening a 24-hour crisis center; controlling prescriptions for heroin users who have tried other treatments; and enacting the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, where officers send heroin users to counseling and services instead of jail.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up