Street roots., June 10, 2016, Page 7, Image 7

Street Roots • June 10-16, 2016
News
Page 7
A conversation about public drug use
Street Roots to co-host documentary screening, panel discussion on safe injection sites
BY EMILY GREEN
In this screen shot
from the documentary
“Everywhere B u t Safe:
Public Injecting in
New York,”people
inject drugs in the
injection room at
Insite in Vancouver,
B.C. Insite is the only
supervised injection
site in North America.
STAFF WRITER
ortland, we have a public injection
problem.
B
Public parks, playgrounds and
walkways frequented by drug users are
littered with hazardous used syringes.
People using intravenous drugs in public
spaces are dying from easily reversible
heroin overdoses. From 2011 to 2014,
heroin contributed to a total of 284 deaths
in Multnomah County, according to medical
examiner reports.
Unsafe injecting habits are contributing to
the spread of Hepatitis C and other blood-
borne diseases and to public health costs.
Acute cases of Hepatitis C in Oregon are 50
percent higher than the national average,
with an estimated 95,000 Oregonians having
contracted the disease, according to a 2014
Oregon Health Authority report. And half of
them don’t even know i t
For these reasons, a coalition of
organizations including Street Roots, Drug
Policy Alliance, Cascade AIDs Project,
Rosehip Medic Collective and Outside In,
the nonprofit behind Portland’s oldest
syringe exchange, wants you, Portland, to
start thinking about how the establishment
of a safe injection site has the potential to
combat these ongoing public health issues.
Supervised-injection sites offer a
dedicated space for people to inject illicit
drugs, which they have already obtained,
under the supervision of trained medical
staffers who are there to intervene with life­
saving measures if anything goes awry. Staff
also teaches safer injection methods and
offers counseling and a connection to
resources when a user is ready to quit
Worldwide, there are 98 such sites
operating in 66 cities, and peer-reviewed
studies show they work.
Portland’s unofficial coalition of
proponents has banded together with New
York filmmakers Matt Curtis and Taeko Frost
to bring a documentary and open discussion
about public drug injection to the Laurelhurst
Theater at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 16. It’s an
event they’re calling “Safer Spaces.”
“Opiate overdoses are wreaking havoc on
people experiencing homelessness in
Multnomah County,” Street Roots Director
Israel Bayer said. “Street Roots believes that
providing a safe injection site would help
save lives.”
While homeless individuals mqke up less
than 1 percent of Multnomah County’s total
population, they accounted for 25 percent of
heroin-related deaths in 2014, with 14 people
experiencing homelessness dying with
heroin listed as a contributing or primary
cause of death, according to the county’s
most recent Domicile Unknown report
Outside In director Kathy Oliver said her
organization is participating in the event
because it wants “to further the conversation
about safe and healthy options for injection
drug users in Portland.”
The 34-minute Sawbuck Production
“Everywhere But Safe: Public Injecting in
New York” explores the dangers of public
panel discussion on safe-
injection sites
injection, both on
co-located within pre-existing service
the streets of New When: 6 to 8 p.m. June 16
providers, as users in Seattle are
York City and on
spread out throughout the city.
Where: Laurelhurst Theater,
“We’re really on track to have a
rural back roads in 2735 E Burnside St., Portland
robust, sa n c tio n e d facility o p e n in
more remote areas
Cost: $10 suggested donation th e n ear future,” s b e said.
of the state.
--------
Sully plans to bring with her to
Curtis, the policy
the Portland panel a discussion about
director at VOCAL
how advocates in Seattle are pushing for a
New York, said the film is intended as a
site where it’s not only safe to inject drugs,
launching pad for discussion into how public
but to smoke them as well. She said
injection is affecting each city where the
providing people who inject drugs with a
film is shown.
place to use safely and free from fear of
“We want people to reflect on what this
arrest, but leaving people who smoke drugs
looks like in Portland,” he said.
susceptible, could have unintended
He and Frost have presented the film and
consequences that would perpetuate the
accompanying discussions in New York,
disparity already present in the criminal
Chicago, Baltimore and Seattle, where he
justice system.
said the most promising efforts toward
Street Roots and its partners are also
opening a safe injection site are being made
working to facilitate an information session
outside of New York.
the day before the film’s showing and have
Recently awarded grant funding will allow
invited a wide range of community members
the filmmakers to bring their documentary
to attend, including public officials and
to Los Angeles, San Francisco and
Washington, D.C., he said. They are showing members of the law enforcement and
business communities.
the film only in cities where they have been
“All of our bathrooms have become
invited.
shooting galleries for drug users. It’s not
The Portland film screening is open to
only unfair to businesses; it’s dangerous and
the public with a suggested donation of $10,
inhumane,” Street Roots’ Bayer said.
however no one will be turned away for
Street Roots and harm reduction
inability to pay.
advocates have scheduled a separate
It will be followed by a panel discussion
about the possibility of opening a supervised meeting with officials from the Multnomah
County Health Department, which operates
injection site in Portland.
several syringe exchanges and a skin care
Sitting on the panel with the filmmakers
clinic where intravenous drug users can get
and other health and addiction experts will
treatment for infections and abscesses.
be Patricia Sully, an attorney and VOCAL
“Public drug use is at an all-time high in
Washington coordinator.
our community,” Bayer said, adding that
She’s been on the front lines of efforts to
current efforts are not enough. “Multnomah
open safe consumption sites in Seattle and
County has acted as a national leader in
is a member of the Heroin and Opiate
harm reduction for many years. Saying that,
Addiction Task Force, a joint venture
it’s time for the county leadership to step up
between King County and Seattle
and lead again,” he said.
governments.
Supervised-injection sites have been
She said there has been expressed
operating
in many parts of Europe since the
interest from county and city officials in
1980s and in Australia and Canada since the
moving safe consumption sites forward. The
early 2000s.
questions now are around funding and
According to an analysis of dozens of
implementation. She said it s likely Seattle
studies on supervised-injection sites
will have multiple safe consumption sites
conducted by Ontario HIV Treatment
Network, not only do supervised-injection
sites reduce overdose incidence, fatality
r a te s and injection-related d ise a se ; tb e y also
“le a d to r ed u ctio n s in in jec tin g b eh a v io r and
a n in c r e a s e i n t h e n u m b e r o f c l ie n t s
accessing addiction treatment services.”
It also found these sites “do not lead to
any significant disruptions in public order or
safety in the neighborhoods where they are
located.”
While the possibility of opening safe
injection sites in New York, Boston, Seattle,
Ottawa and Toronto is being explored, to
date, there is just one such site in North
America: Insite in Vancouver, B.C.
As the film points out, after Insite opened
in 2003, overdose deaths dropped by 35
percent in the surrounding neighborhood,
but in New York City, fatalities have
increased 41 percent since 2010.
Within the first 12 weeks of opening,.
Insite was independently responsible for
nearly 50 percent reductions in public
injections, improper syringe disposal and
other injection-related litter, according to a
study by the Canadian Medical Association.
In another study of the same facility,
conducted four years later by the University
of British Columbia and the British
Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/
AIDS, 23 percent of respondents stopped
injecting before the study had ended and 57
percent had entered addiction treatm ent
Seventy-one percent indicated Insite had led
to less public injecting.
Curtis said policymakers in New York
have been receptive, with members in both
the state House and Senate showing
support for legislation that would allow
dedicated spaces where possession laws
could be waived and establish a framework
for county health departments to operate
such sites.
He said hosting a film screening is a good
first step, but it won’t work unless there is a
sustained local coalition that continues to
. advocate for the establishment of a safe-
injection site in each city where it’s shown.