Tag: drug consumption rooms
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Without safe injection sites, more opioid users will die
Thursday, 23 May 2019Ontario is undoubtedly in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis. From January to September 2018, an incredible 1,031 Ontarians died of an overdose. The number of deaths in the province is second onl ...
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Oakland explores possibility of opening safe injection site
Monday, 13 May 2019Oakland officials are exploring building a safe injection site for illicit-drug users in hopes of lowering open-air drug use on city streets. Mayor Libby Schaaf and Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas i ...
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Trump Justice Department goes after overdose prevention sites as ‘crack houses’
Wednesday, 24 April 2019Two major U.S. cities are trying to open facilities to save drug users’ lives, but the Trump administration is trying to stop them, arguing the facilities are no different than crack houses. Seattle ...
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Calls for drug law reform in Sweden as drug deaths continue unabated
Thursday, 18 April 2019The debate around Sweden’s zero-tolerance drug policy has been reignited in recent months, due to the approach’s failure to reduce drug deaths. Sweden currently has one of the highest rates of drug-r ...
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Demand for supervised injection sites steady as funding decisions loom
Monday, 11 March 2019As toxic and often deadly fentanyl began popping up in the city's illicit drug supply fatal overdoses surged. Despite strong opposition, four supervised injection sites, including this one, opened th ...
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Drug consumption rooms 'should be considered' in NI
Thursday, 07 March 2019Consideration should be given to providing rooms where people can safely inject themselves with illegal drugs, NI's chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride has said. There is a "significant problem" ...
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Tens of thousands of Americans die each year from opioid overdoses
Saturday, 23 February 2019Drugs now kill about 70,000 Americans every year—more than car crashes or guns (both 39,000), more than AIDS did at the height of its epidemic (42,000), and more than all the American soldiers killed ...
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Safe injection site for opioid users faces Trump administration crackdown
Wednesday, 06 February 2019The Justice Department is suing to stop a Philadelphia group from opening what some public health experts and mayors consider the next front in fighting the opioid epidemic: a place where people who ...
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A safe fix for Bristol’s drug users and the city
Friday, 25 January 2019Unlike in Bristol, in 66 cities around the world, drug users don’t have to take their drugs in public or down an alleyway. Instead they do it in a clean, safe environment. Safe consumption rooms (SCR ...
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Safer opioids actively being reviewed for epidemic: chief public health officer
Wednesday, 12 December 2018Public health officials across Canada are seriously considering increasing the supply of safer opioids to quell a crisis that newly released data show helped claim more than 2,000 lives in the first ...
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A promising way to help drug users is ‘severely lacking’ around the world, report says
Tuesday, 11 December 2018Global funding for harm reduction programs is in “crisis,” according to the latest Global State of Harm Reduction report, potentially threatening the effectiveness of HIV, hepatitis and drug overdose ...
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Harm reduction is the right way to treat drug abuse
Saturday, 24 November 2018Portugal’s policies are based on “harm reduction” approaches pioneered in countries such as Switzerland in the 1980s. The idea is to emphasise treatment and prevention more than punishment, says Bren ...
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How 'fixing rooms' are saving the lives of drug addicts
Wednesday, 21 November 2018All over Europe, every day, many thousands of people will inject heroin in drug consumption rooms. But none of these will be in the UK, where drug addicts are mainly confined to back streets, crack h ...
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IDPC response to the INCB Annual Report for 2017
Monday, 08 October 2018
In the approach to the 2019 Ministerial Segment and its review of international drug control, the INCB’s Annual Report for 2017 is arguably of special importance. The INCB has chosen to stress the co ...
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‘An argument that made no sense at all’
Friday, 05 October 2018Former Gov. Ed Rendell announced that he is incorporating a nonprofit, called Safehouse, that will work to open a safe injection site in Philadelphia. Responding to a threat by Deputy Attorney Genera ...
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Refuting science, Jerry Brown vetoes safe injection plan
Monday, 01 October 2018Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have allowed San Francisco to open what could have been the nation’s first supervised drug injection sites. “Fundamentally, I do not be ...
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A major study questioned the evidence for safe injection sites. It’s now been retracted
Thursday, 27 September 2018A major meta-analysis published earlier this year that questioned the empirical evidence for supervised drug consumption sites has been retracted by the International Journal of Drug Policy. But the ...
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Cities defiant after Justice Department’s threat on ‘supervised injection sites’
Tuesday, 04 September 2018Cities seeking to open sites where illegal drug users are monitored to prevent overdoses responded defiantly to a Justice Department threat to take “swift and aggressive action” against that approach ...
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Watchful eyes: At peer-run injection sites, drug users help each other stay safe
Friday, 13 July 2018People who use injection drugs in Vancouver, British Columbia, can do so, if they choose, under the watchful eyes of someone trained to help them if they overdose. This is the idea behind supervised ...
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Cities planning supervised drug injection sites fear Justice Department reaction
Thursday, 12 July 2018In parts of the country hit hard by addiction, some public health officials are considering running sites where people can use heroin and other illegal drugs under medical supervision. Advocates say ...
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Police commissioners urge Home Office to drop opposition to addicts’ ‘fix rooms’
Monday, 02 July 2018There are renewed calls for the UK government to allow the opening of a drug consumption room in Glasgow after three police and crime commissioners backed the idea as a way of saving lives. The elect ...
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Melbourne's first safe injecting room, clean, sterile and 'will save lives'
Friday, 29 June 2018Up to 300 people a day are expected to use Victoria's first medically supervised drug injecting room when it opens in the coming days. The Victorian Government committed to a two-year trial at the No ...
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Sweden's zero-tolerance drug policy should be reviewed: narcotics officer
Thursday, 14 June 2018Sweden's current policy is based on the goal of a "drug-free society" and makes no distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs. Those found guilty of possession or usage can face fines and a mark on ...
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Is Sweden's zero-tolerance approach to drugs a failing model?
Thursday, 17 May 2018Sweden is accustomed to being praised for its forward-thinking approach, but there's one area where many feel it lies behind the curve. The country's "zero tolerance" policy towards drugs is an incre ...
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Supervised injection facilities are illegal in the United States
Monday, 30 April 2018Several major cities are trying to open “safe injection sites” for drug abusers — even though they are technically illegal. With recent evidence that these sites can save lives and money, cities incl ...
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An opioid crisis foretold
Saturday, 21 April 2018Today’s opioid crisis is already the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. Opioid overdoses killed more than 45,000 people in the 12 months that ended in September, according to the Centers fo ...
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Drugs should not be in the hands of organized crime
Sunday, 25 February 2018Drug overdoses are one of the leading causes of death in the United States and are contributing to decline in life expectancy. The opioid epidemic has cost an estimated $1 trillion since 2001. And ye ...
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Let cities open safe injection sites
Saturday, 24 February 2018One of the most consistent patterns in the more than 64,000 deaths attributed to opioid and other drug overdoses in 2016 was that the victims’ last moments went unobserved. Last year, the number of d ...
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Plans for heroin to be prescribed to addicts in West Midlands
Monday, 12 February 2018Doctors in the West Midlands could soon be prescribing heroin for addicts, who would be invited to inject themselves with clean syringes in drug consumption rooms with medical staff on standby, under ...
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To cut drug deaths, city considers sanctioned places to shoot up
Friday, 09 February 2018In 2016, the opioid epidemic claimed 1,374 lives in New York City. That’s roughly four drug overdose deaths each day. One death every seven hours. New York City officials are floating an idea that so ...
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Philadelphia aims to become first US city to legalize safe injection sites
Tuesday, 06 February 2018Philadelphia officials are pushing an effort to make the city the first in the U.S. to allow drug users to shoot up at a medically supervised facility. The city overdose-related deaths peaked last ye ...
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A huge step backward on opioids
Wednesday, 24 January 2018The latest statistics on the overdose crisis -- roughly 64,000 deaths in the United States in 2016 -- also reveal that fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are now the driving force behind US overdos ...
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Desperate cities consider 'safe injection' sites for opioid users
Wednesday, 10 January 2018Philadelphia officials are advocating to become the first in the U.S. city to open a supervised injection site, where people suffering from heroin or opioid addiction could use under medical supervis ...
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Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?
Tuesday, 05 December 2017In 2001, Portugal became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances. Rather than being arrested, those caught with a personal supply might be given a ...
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Supervised injection sites could stop untold opioid-related deaths
Friday, 01 December 2017In addition to the legal issues, the heavy stigma around heroin and other opioids driving the nation's overdose crisis can push individuals into the shadows where they are most vulnerable. Officially ...
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Ottawa approves temporary overdose-prevention sites in bid to address opioid crisis
Thursday, 16 November 2017Ottawa will let provinces and territories open temporary sites for drug-overdose prevention while their applications for permanent facilities are processed, a measure officials hope will curb the cou ...
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Toronto's first permanent supervised injection site opens downtown
Wednesday, 08 November 2017Toronto's first sanctioned, permanent supervised injection site officially opened its doors. The site, located inside The Works at 277 Victoria St., will provide "a safe and hygienic environment for ...
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Money on the table for a safe drug consumption site in Seattle
Tuesday, 07 November 2017Despite the backlash from various King County cities against the idea of establishing safe drug consumption sites, the Seattle City Council is moving ahead on its own. It has already set aside substa ...
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Melbourne heroin injecting room trial gets green light
Monday, 30 October 2017The Andrews government has approved a trial run of a safe injecting room for heroin addicts. Key upper house MP James Purcell confirmed that his vital vote would go with legislation to enable a state ...
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Are UK drug consumption rooms likely?
Thursday, 12 October 2017What does the Home Office really think about drug consumption rooms - safe and supervised places where addicts can inject or inhale illicit substances without fear of prosecution? DCRs are used in ot ...
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Commission makes recommendations for tackling opioid crisis in North America
Tuesday, 03 October 2017The Global Commission on Drug Policy has issued recommendations on tackling North America's opioid crisis, calling for the immediate expansion of harm-reduction services, the decriminalization and re ...
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IDPC response to the INCB Annual Report for 2016
Saturday, 30 September 2017
The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) Annual Report for 2016 is, as usual, a mixed bag of high quality data and sometimes doubtful political views. It is the final Report of the Presidency ...
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Victorian Parliament can save lives by trialling safe injecting room
Monday, 18 September 2017Dozens of people have fatally overdosed on heroin in the gutters, laneways and front gardens of Richmond. Not a single person has ever died in a safe-injecting space anywhere in the world. Yet the Vi ...
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Toronto's guerrilla war on drug overdoses
Friday, 15 September 2017Nurses and volunteers watch over drug users at the Toronto's first pop-up supervised drug-use site. In the month since the site started operating in a gritty east-end park with the tacit approval of ...
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The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users looks back on 20 years fighting for human rights
Monday, 04 September 2017In the late summer of 1997, a poster with a message aimed at drug users appeared on electrical poles around the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. “Meeting in the park,” one read. “Discussion items: pol ...
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How the war on drugs fueled the fentanyl crisis
Tuesday, 29 August 2017A staggering 59,000 people died of drug overdose in 2016 according to a recent New York Times analysis. Annual overdose deaths in the US have already surpassed those inflicted by Aids at its peak. Sp ...
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Ottawa rejects expert calls to decriminalize illegal opioids
Monday, 28 August 2017Ottawa says it has no plans to consider decriminalizing hard drugs, such as heroin, despite calls from local politicians, health officials and experts who argue such radical action is needed to comba ...
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Secret supervised drug injection facility has been operating at US site for years
Tuesday, 08 August 2017For nearly three years, in an undisclosed US city, a social service agency has quietly been inviting people to inject illegal drugs at a clandestine site, without the government’s approval. More than ...
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We already know how to stop people dying from drugs – but the Government refuses to do it
Wednesday, 02 August 2017Last year saw the highest number of drug-related deaths since records began in 1993. More than half of these deaths involved an opiate, such as heroin. Those aged 40 to 49 made up the largest group d ...
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Drug consumption rooms ruled out by government
Wednesday, 26 July 2017The UK government has dismissed a call from its own advisory body to consider introducing drug consumption rooms. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) had said the rooms had the potenti ...
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