FDS Insight Newsletter Jul-Sep 2020

42 heroin supply in D.C. contains fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that is 50-100 times more potent than morphine. Fentanyl has been involved in the majority of overdose fatalities within the past few years. Last December, in response to widespread criticism for political inaction, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office, in partnership with the Department of Behavioral Health, announced their ‘LIVE. LONG. D.C.‘ plan with multiple goals, including reducing ‘opioid-related deaths by 50 percent in 2020.’ While HIPS has finally been equipped through this initiative with an ample supply of naloxone, the medication used to reverse opiate overdoses, this goal falls short of the reality that overdose deaths can be entirely preventable. In fact, we have a model that’s been successfully replicated in 10 countries over multiple decades to prove it: safe consumption spaces (SCSs). In six years of doing outreach with HIPS, I’ve witnessed firsthand the impact of providing syringe exchange, safer injection equipment, naloxone, linkage to care, and other essential services for people who use drugs. But outreach efforts and harm-reduction supplies cannot on their own heal the extreme stigma many people who use drugs face, which perpetuates social environments ripe for fatal overdose. And, of course, they cannot on their own, solve our drug crisis, which is born from a complex intersection of structural racism, poverty, a lack of accessible healthcare and affordable housing, criminalization, and a poisoned and largely unregulated drug supply. At HIPS, we provide naloxone and other harm-reduction services to residents at the highest risk of overdose or of witnessing loved ones overdose. As a society, however, we do not acknowledge this essential gap in services that SCSs fill. Instead, we have normalized sending off people who use drugs to use on the streets, alone, or in other high-risk settings. My friend fatally overdosed just over a year ago, on April 6. She texted me the night she died, saying she felt too ashamed to accept help. This feeling was compounded by a lack of response from the several treatment centers she had contacted shortly before her death. She had overdosed multiple times before while using alone and had been revived by EMTs, with no follow-up from medical professionals. I can’t say with certainty that she would have chosen an SCS over using alone, but I do know that she felt she had ‘burdened’ her family and friends too much already. She wanted the type of direct help that an SCS provides. I believe she would have at least considered using an SCS, particularly because of the low-barrier way in which most operate. Regardless, she should have been provided with