Supervised injection sites for drug users to open in New York City
The Manhattan facilities will provide clean needles, administer medication to reverse overdoses and provide users with options for addiction treatment
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
In an attempt to curb a surge in overdose deaths caused by increasingly potent street drugs, New York City will authorize two supervised injection sites in Manhattan to begin operating. Trained staff at two sites — in the neighborhoods of East Harlem and Washington Heights — will provide clean needles, administer naloxone to reverse overdoses and provide users with options for addiction treatment, city health officials said. Users will bring their own drugs. New York, the country’s most populous city, will become the first U.S. city to open officially authorized injection sites — facilities that opponents view as magnets for drug abuse but proponents praise as providing a less punitive and more effective approach to addressing addiction.