New York approves bill legalizing Overdose Prevention Center

A New York Senate committee passed a bill authorizing the establishment of a state-approved Overdose Prevention Center (or OPC, also known as a supervised consumption point or safer consumption room). Safer consumption areas are monitored places where illegal drugs are used under medical supervision. The legislation, Senate Bill S399A (passing the Safer Consumption Services Act, SCSA), would require the New York State Department of Health and Human Services to approve at least one monitored consumption point. Although OPCs already exist, this bill will make it easier for mitigation forces to do their jobs and consolidate the work already done.

New York City opened the first city-authorized safe consumption locations in late 2021. Advancing legislation will provide people with a sterile environment for using prepackaged substances (they don’t provide you with any) and provide them with a safer alternative to bathrooms or other sites visited. In addition, the prevention center will also keep medical staff on site to ensure people are administering the drug more safely. Such sites also offer protections not available when using the drug in an unsupervised facility, as medical staff are on site to properly treat any overdoses. Naloxone for opioid overdose reversal will be available at the safer point of use. On-site staff will also educate attendees on safer consumption practices and treatment information. While the site may collect aggregate data about its participants and their experiences, participants and employees of the safer consumption outlet enjoy immunity from prosecution for the sanctioned activities.

As a reminder, in 2015 the IDUHA (Injection Drug Users Health Alliance) issued a memo essentially instructing harm reduction agencies to assume that people who use their restrooms are likely to use opioids and are therefore at risk of overdose, A New York city mitigation worker explains it to the High Times. However, most agencies have a policy that anyone using the restroom should knock on the door every few minutes, and staff can access the restroom and provide overdose assistance (including naloxone and respiratory ventilation and contacting emergency services ) if the resident does not respond. “On average, my team responds to one overdose per month in our bathroom, with multiple uses per day not resulting in an overdose. We have to wait until someone stops breathing and doesn’t respond to a knock on the door. At this point, he may not have been breathing for several minutes,” our source says. “The SCSA is an important piece of legislation because it recognizes the work already being done — harm reduction workers and people who use drugs and their peers are already on the front lines of the overdose crisis.”

The Senate Health Committee passed Senator Gustavo Rivera’s (D) harm reduction bill in a ballot Tuesday, and it will now move to the Finance Committee for consideration. The SCSA’s companion version of the assembly, sponsored by Rep. Linda Rosenthal (D), cleared the chamber’s health committee in March.

“Damage reduction works. “Harm reduction is a modality — an approach to dealing with a problem that first assumes that a person using drugs is a person and that you need to meet them where they are,” Rivera said at the hearing. “Fact number two: criminalization hasn’t worked.”

“Over the decades of the drug war, it’s pretty clear that we lost that war,” he continues. “The notion that we could find our way out of addiction — that we could find our way out of overdoses and death — has been proven to be a lie because of all this years of experience. Criminalization doesn’t work.”

It marks a milestone in the history of harm reduction. “Today the Senate recognized the dire situation New York finds itself in due to the drug overdose crisis and the failed policy of the War on Drugs,” advocacy group VOCAL-NY said in a press release Tuesday. “New York is one step closer to approving overdose prevention centers across the state,” said the group’s Users Union leaders. “Legislators need to keep up the momentum and pass the Safe Consumption Services Act by the end of the session in both houses.”

However, the New York harm reduction worker who was spoken to by High Times explains that thanks to the hard work of passionate harm reduction groups, this bill may just secure what already exists. “Each OPC will be placed in pre-existing harm reduction agencies. In fact, not much will change in the bill. Last week, I traveled to Albany with a cohort of workers and attendees from VOCAL-NY, Housing Works and OnPoint to speak with lawmakers who had not yet signed up. When we met [New York State Senator] I said to Tim Kennedy’s Legislative Director, “We’re already doing this, but because we can’t see it, we have to keep the bathroom door closed. Let’s keep the door open — that’s all we’re asking.”