Sarah Taddeo

@sjtaddeo

Statewide advocates brought the idea of a safe consumption facility for drug users to life Thursday in hopes of starting a community conversation about the concept.

Vocal NY, an advocacy organization based in New York City, and the New York office of Drug Policy Alliance are touring the state with a pop-up model of a safe consumption facility to show people how the concept would work. The tour stopped in Rochester Thursday.

A safe consumption facility, also referred to as a “safe injection facility”, or an SIF, is a place where drug consumers can use drugs using provided, clean supplies and experience the drugs’ effects in a safe, supervised environment where an overdose can be quickly addressed.

Area sites would provide heroin users immediate access

The idea for these sites gained momentum after the opioid epidemic took off in recent years. Monroe County’s overdose deaths increased by 64 percent between 2010 and 2015.

Many believe the “harm reduction” approach — keeping users alive and free from infection until they're ready to seek recovery — is key to reaching them with recovery information.

While there is currently no legal framework for SIF operation in New York state, Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, is planning to introduce a bill that would allow the statewide establishment of the sites.

There are no SIFs operating anywhere in the U.S., although one was recently approved in Seattle, as well as several in Toronto, Canada. There’s just one operating now in North America, in Vancouver, Canada. Safe injection facilities have been operating in Europe since the 1980s.

“We’re trying to start a community discussion about different approaches to the opioid crisis,” said Mary Taylor, Vocal NY’s statewide organizer, adding that bringing the site model on tour served to “demystify (safe injection) a little bit.”

While in Rochester, Vocal NY representatives showed a film called Everywhere but Safe about using drugs in public, and held a panel dialogue with the community.

An average SIF would offer free, clean supplies, such as syringes and alcohol wipes, and provide discreet areas where people could use while trained individuals supervised them in case of overdose or improper injection, said Taylor. Naloxone, a medication that blocks opioid effects, would be available onsite to combat overdoses, and may be distributed to attendees.

A " chill area," where consumers could rest after drug use, would contain materials on recovery and treatment. Depending on the person, a user may be more able to discuss recovery after they've consumed drugs because that'll stifle withdrawal symptoms, which plague a heavy drug user throughout the day.

Joan Hessenauer of Rochester lost her son James Hissey to a drug overdose three years ago, and visited the safe injection facility model tour Thursday.

“The reason I support safe injection facilities is because people don’t die there,” said Hessenauer, adding that she’d like to see eventual sites offer strips to test drugs like heroin for lethal amounts of fentanyl, an even stronger synthetic opioid that can be disguised in bags of heroin. Fentanyl is responsible for dozens of recent overdoses.

Desperate to detox

Many cities around the country, including Rochester, already have syringe exchange programs, where users can pick up free syringes or other drug use equipment and/or receive HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C testing. SIFs would fit into the same "harm reduction" category, said Taylor.

The SIF concept is polarizing, given that many officials and residents argue the approach will enable drug consumers to continue their habit unchecked, or that a site may become a hub for drug dealing or crime.

“People are going to use (drugs) regardless, and this is a way to keep them safe and healthy until they’re ready to possibly go into treatment,” said Taylor. A 2011 study found that overdoses in the immediate area of the Vancouver SIF decreased by 35 percent since its inception in 2003.

Desperate to detox

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren wants to pursue other avenues to address the opioid crisis before she'd consider a safe injection site in Rochester, said City Communications Director James Smith. She's now working with the city, police and local substance abuse professionals to establish a “safe sober site," where drug consumers who’ve already used could come down from their high under supervision and access recovery information.



The city of Ithaca published a plan last year to address the growing issue of opioid overdoses in that area, and a safe injection site is included, as well as recommendations for a detox facility and more medically-assisted treatment like a methadone clinic, said Gwen Wilkinson, who's working on the plan as interim drug policy coordinator.

“I think these other things go hand-in-hand,” she said. “The SIFs will be more successful if we have them.”

The statewide SIF tour's goal is not to try to force cities to implement the approach or to tell them how to do it, said Taylor.

“We just want to create a statewide dialogue around this,” she said.

STADDEO@Gannett.com

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