France is testing safe drug consumption rooms for opioid addicts
Halfway through a six-year trial, more users are getting medical care and fewer are discarding needles in the street
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Paris’s supervised consumption room, close to the Gare du Nord train station, is preventing potential fatalities and delivering much-needed health care. In the first year, the team provided more than 800 treatments, including dressing wounds and directing users to opioid substitutes such as methadone, and screened more than 100 people for infectious diseases. Visitors were rushed to an adjacent hospital or given emergency medical care on-site on average once every three weeks. Users bring their own drugs (police won’t charge them with personal possession in the surrounding streets), while staff members issue clean needles, send drug samples to labs to check purity, and intervene in emergencies. The facility also has a lounge, library, and arts space.
