‘Safe-injection’ sites actually do no good at all

New York’s two supervised drug-consumption sites hꦕave long suffered from the soft bigotry of low expectations. 

P🌠roponents say the sites are vital, life-saving tools in the ever-expanding drug crisis﷽.

Mayor Adams declared, “Overdose prevention centers keep neighborhood🐈s and people struggling with substance use safe.”

But the evidence Adams and others use to support this ar𒉰gument almost always supports less than they c🌱laim.

Take a recent that measures the effect of New York’s two supervised-consumption sites — also known as safe-injection sites — on crime and disorder in their vicinity.

Compared with “control” areas, ജthe study finds, the sites did not cause a statistically significant increase in either outcome. 

The study is well-designed, a rarity for research on thꦰese sites. So its conclusion is certainly plausible. 

But there’s an important limitation.

The comparison areas aren’t random city blocks but the ar🌊eas aro꧅und New York’s 17 needle exchanges.

That means supervised-consumption sites don’t increase disorder any more than other drug services do. 

That’s an interesting finding. But knowing that supervised-consumption sites don’t make crime worse in service-saturatedꦜ neighborhoods only tells us so mu♊ch.

It does not inform us what would happen if, for example, such a site were set up in midtown Manhattan.&n🥂bsp;

Even more important than this limitation is another implication of the study, one that harm-reduction ꦇadvocates would like to ignore.

Its results imply supervised-consumption sites may not increase crime, but they don’t reduce it, either. 

Advocates sometimes pitch supervised sites as a way to reduce visible public꧙ drug use by bringing it indoors.

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, for example, claims that “public drug use, syringe litter and drug-related crime goes down” where such 🐠sites are used.

But in New York, that’s not happening.

Rather, the “null” finding of the JAMA study is just the latest example of an important trend: Wherever they’re tried, supervised-consum🤪ption sites don’t make things worse, but they also don’t make things better. 

The sites’ pr♎oponents like to say their support is “evidence-based.”

But the overwhelming co🍎nclusiಌon of the scientific evidence is that they have no effect on overdose-death rates in their vicinity.

Two studies of , Canada, and  Spain, found that those who used such sites more were no less likely to OD th♛an those who used them less. 

 of the New South Wales, Australi🥀a, site found no statistically significant difference in overdoses near the si🐓te, compared with the rest of the state.

Most persuasive, two recent studies of 34 sites acr❀oss  and  using high-quality statistical methods find no effect on OD-death rates.  

Consumption sites were sold t🐬o New Yorkers as a means to stem the overdose-෴death crisis.

But death rates continue to rise&nb𝐆sp;in the neighborhoods near New York’s facilities.  

They also don’t seem to be getting peopꦑle into treatment.

Data from New York’s sites show ⭕that only a smalဣl fraction of clients are getting referred for medication or counseling services.  

It’s not enough that supervised-consumption sites don’t make things worse — they need to make them bet♔ter, too.

After all, sites like New York’s e🌠at up valuable private funds that could be directed toward drug-treatment and -prevention services.

If site director Sam Rivera had his way, they’d 🏅also be getting a cut of the state’s opioid-settlement funds. 

If supervised-co⛦nsumption sites want public funds for running a federally illegal service, they need to actually save the l𝓀ives they claim to save.

That they don’t is a good reason for New York to retool the 𝓀approach — or scrap them a💜ltogether. 

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal and a 2023-24 Robert Novak fellow with the Fund for American Studies.