Lawmakers in California are debating whether to open sites where people can inject or snort illegal drugs under the watchful gaze of a health care worker. These facilities are an effort to save lives as overdoses skyrocket across the country.
“Instead of having people use drugs on the sidewalk when your kid is walking by, we want to give them a place where they can go inside,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, the sponsor of a bill to pilot facilities in Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Wiener stresses that so-called “safe consumption” or “supervised injection sites” would not only prevent overdoses, but also slow the spread of HIV and hepatitis by offering clean syringes.
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