Seattle’s Legal Heroin Safe House

It's become increasingly obvious that past and current methods of waging the so-called “War on Drugs” have been largely ineffective. So the authorities in Seattle are opting for a different tactic – a heroin safe zone. There's no way around it: the United States is the world's biggest illicit drug market. While use of a few drugs seems to be declining, some areas of the country are in the grip of an opioid epidemic. In Seattle alone, for example, deaths from heroin overdoses rose by 58% over the course of 2014, from 99 to 156. Seattle's proposed heroin safe zone would be a safe consumption site, different from a methadone clinic (Seattle already has those). At the safe zone, heroin addicts would use drugs under medical supervision, hopefully lowering rates of fatal overdose and transmission of diseases from dirty needles. They would also have opportunities to receive addiction treatment. The idea of a safe consumption site isn't brand new, and it wouldn't make heroin legal. The Heroin Task force, formed by Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine, is calling for a radical rethink of how the city interacts with heroin addicts, many of whom are also homeless. (Murray is further proposing an improved homeless shelter to welcome addicts off the streets.) Of course, this is a pretty controversial idea.

 Opponents have some valid questions, perhaps the most obvious being “hey, isn't giving people a place to do drugs, as well as the equipment to do it, essentially enabling their addiction?” Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. There's fairly compelling evidence that creating safe consumption sites can have tangible benefits. Vancouver, for instance, is home to a 13 year old safe-injection area called Insite, where no overdose deaths have occurred. Insite has been the subject of multiple peer-reviewed studies indicating the site has saved lives, reduced disease transmission and brought more addicts into treatment programs. The goal of these enterprises is to keep addicts alive long enough to enter treatment, while reducing the social impact addicts can have on the surrounding community, such as leaving dirty needles in alleyways and public parks. Seattle hasn't officially signed off on creating this sort of site yet, and there are some difficult questions to tackle before anything like this opens. In country where citizens spend billions of dollars buying drugs and governments spend billions attempting to squash the trade, is it time to reassess how all that money could be spent? Or is this just enabling people, as opponents suggest, and accelerating the epidemic it was designed to stop? And one last thing: if you or a loved one are currently looking for a way to escape addiction, please take a moment to check out the information at the end of this video. There are phone numbers you can call, websites you can visit, and places you can go for help. Most importantly, there are people who care about you. You can be free from addiction, and your life is worth the effort.