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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 2017)
Page 8 News Street Roots • Nov. 17-23, 2017 UNDER WATCHFUL EYES Insite in Vancouver, B.C., was North America’s first legal supervised consumption space. Within the first 12 weeks o f opening in 2003, Insite was responsible fo r nearly 50 percent reductions in public injections, improper syringe disposal a nd other injection related litter, according to a study by the Canadian Medical Association. Some U.S. cities are considering opening a sim ilar facility. News Street Roots • Nov. 17-23, 2017 Page 9 Safer Spaces Portland is pushing fo r the opening o f a safe consumption space to m inim ize risks fo r drug users BY EMILY GREEN might stand in the way. SE N IO R STAFF REPORTER Em ily Green: You were a nurse a t Insite. How did having a safe consumption space in Vancouver impact the community there? A campaign to open a safe consumption / % space in Portland has officially X JUaunched, with members making their Sh ann on Riley: I saw it personally first public appearance at an Oregon Health impact the community in a number of & Science University event Thursday, Nov. different ways. First of all, it was a place for 16. people to come in off the streets, either The campaign, Safer Spaces Portland, is away from using alone in private housing, or just getting its feet off the ground, but away from using publicly, to come into a organizers said they hope to build a broad space that was for them - a medical space, coalition that includes all stakeholders that had sterile supplies, that had medical working together. professionals. It was a sterile space for OHSU’s School of Public Health invited them to use their medicine, where they campaign members and other proponents of weren’t at risk for incarceration, or they a safe consumption space to speak to health weren’t at risk of rushing and then causing care professionals at the Lucky Labrador themselves more harm. A place for them to Pub on Northwest Quimby Street about how create community, and build trust with a these spaces could help prevent fatal drug medical system that has really left them overdoses in Portland. stranded for so long. People who use drugs “Someone who has are definitely subject to overdosed and died from so much stigma from "Supervised Infection opiates does not have a our larger community, spaces are a ctu a lly where chance for treatment,” and so I would say that treatm ent begins, se that's Sam Chapman, Safer supervised injection Spaces Portland’s a place where people spaces are actually co-founder and advocacy can b u ild tha t trust and where treatment begins, director, told Street so that’s1 a place where have tha t safety« It's Roots. Chapman brings . people can build that the place to fnnsp o ff and nearly a decade of drug- trust and have that create positive change." policy-reform advocacy safety, where they can experience to the SH ANN O N fc ll& Y , eventually consider campaign. PR O JECT M A N A G E R , other things in their life V A N C O U V E R C O A S T A L H EALTH “If successful and have a little bit treatment is the end goal, more confidence to take safe consumption spaces those steps - even if it’s are a great starting point for that just being a little bit more healthy or finding conversation,” he said. housing, or reconnecting with loved ones. Across Multnomah County in 2015, there It’s the place to jump off and create positive were 569 emergency medical service change. responses to overdoses in which naloxone, E.G.: What do you think Portland can an opioid-overdose-reversing medication, was learn from previous attempts to open safe administered, according to the tri-county’s consumption spaces in other parts o f the most recent report on opioid trends. More than half of those responses were dispatched country and other parts o f the world? to public places or businesses - a fact the S.R.: It’s a multi-pronged approach. I campaign says illustrates the need for a safe think community activists need to play a consumption space locally. role. We have seen that so much in These spaces are facilities where people Vancouver. There is so much community can safely use illicit drugs, such as heroin, activism here that has really laid the without fear of arrest and under the groundwork for supervised injection. I think supervision of trained medical professionals we had around four to six different who can intervene in the case of an community-led supervised injection spaces overdose - and serve as a connection to that were peer-run. Within bureaucracy - resources, such as treatment. local government and provincial government Across the U.S., cities including San - just paying attention and pushing the Francisco and Seattle are inching closer to boundaries as much as possible and being opening the nation’s first sanctioned safe ready to jump as soon as change is possible: consumption space. While Portland isn’t E.G.: What services do you envision this likely to be the first, campaign organizers space would provide to people using drugs in say it doesn’t need to be that far behind. Portland? Joining Safer Spaces Portland at the OHSU event was Shannon Riley. As a Sam Chapman: From a fundamental project manager for Vancouver Coastal standpoint, we want to create a safe space Health, Riley’s work is focused on legal for people to use in a private, supervised consumption spaces in housing and public setting with trained health professionals on areas in Vancouver, B.C. She previously staff. I think over time we also envision worked at Insite, the first legal safe social workers and other health professionals being on site to help users consumption space in North America. better understand how they can access a Street Roots asked Riley and Chapman why Portland needs a safe consumptionsite, variety of different treatment options. What we’ve seen historically is that forced the campaign’s strategy and challenges that treatment is often ineffective, but when people have the option and feel they are in a safe, comfortable setting to have these conversations, that the likelihood of them exploring those options is much greater. And we believe a safe consumption space is an ideal place to have those conversations. FACT SHEET E.G.: What is your strategy for m aking this a reality? S.C.: Right now our main focus is to engage the public through a clear and concise education campaign that really highlights the current and immediate need for a safe consumption space here in Portland. Some of the most recent stats are from 2015, but in 2015 there were more than 500 overdose responses here in Multnomah County, and 103 of those 500 overdose responses resulted in a fatality, so that’s more than 1 in 5 people (who had an overdose response) having fatal overdoses here in Multnomah County. I think it’s something that we want people to be aware of. I think that people generally understand that there is an opioid problem and epidemic, and we really want to help focus in on what that means for people here in Multnomah County. The second aspect of our strategy is working with public health professionals, as well as elected officials, to really explore what makes sense in terms of moving this issue forward here in Multnomah County and in Portland, and we’ve already started some of those conversations with the county and the city, along with Outside In, which is the current needle exchange program here in Portland. E.G.: What is going to be the biggest challenge? S.C.: One of the biggest challenges, to my mind, is not if we will eventually come to the realization that there is a dire need for safe consumption spaces, but where and how. Locating a facility like this can often be controversial, depending on where a viable site might be, and that’s why it’s so important that we have coalition partners - whether they be businesses, health professionals, the city, real estate developers. There’s a lot of different stakeholders in this conversation, and it’s important that we bring them in upfront, as opposed to moving forward and then coming to them later on. We want to engage all stakeholders upfront in a very clear way, so we can address concerns upfront and find solutions collectively. E.G.: How can people get involved? S.C.: We’d love to hear from anyone who wants to be a volunteer. They can email us directly at scs4pdx@gmail.com. Follow or like our Safer Spaces Portland Facebook page (Facebook.com/SaferSpacesPDX). It’s a great way to stay up to date with the most recent news, events and information. We’re also launching a website at SaferSpacesPDX. com. emily@streetroots.org; Twitter @greenwrites 77% Of syringe exchange clients polled reported experiencing homelessness o r unstable housing in 2016. 3 MILLION Used syringes were properly disposed by Outside in & Multnomah County syringe exchanges in 2015. Syringe exchanges and SIFs'decrease public disposal in parks by providing spaces for people to properly dispose. >50% O f heroin u sers surveyed w anted to quit or cut down but re po rt m any barriers to treatm ent. Source: Tri-County Regional Opioid Trends 2016 *SIF = supervised injection facility G R A P H IC S C O U R T E S Y O F SAFER S PAC ES P O R T L A N D
