The National Institutes of Health is launching a four-year study of users of the two overdose prevention centers in New York and an upcoming one in Rhode Island. The evidence for these centers’ benefits is already strong, but this study can make it bulletproof.
Whatever political preferences people might have, at the very least we should be able to have some agreement on the importance and validity of the scientific method (though the COVID pandemic has conclusively proven that even that’s now seen as suspect in the eyes of a worryingly large swath of the population).
If these exhaustive studies conclusively prove, as we expect they might, that overdose prevention centers not only save lives but both improve health outcomes and recovery in the long term and do so at a significant cost savings to the health and criminal justice systems, counterarguments get even more strained. There will certainly be those that will still oppose the centers, but they’ll be forced to acknowledge that they do so on purely ideological grounds and despite the documented benefits.
Hard results in hand will also give a significant boost to policymakers skittish about going all-in on an effective but controversial method. The ones who should really be listening are Congress, who have the power to change misguided laws that make these OPCs illegal under federal laws — laws dating from the failed war on drugs to combat crack houses, certainly not facilities staffed by professionals there to prevent overdose deaths and funnel users into wraparound treatment programs.
In the absence of congressional action — and “absence of congressional action” is a pretty sure bet for almost anything — state and local leaders will have to step up, as Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee did when he got the state to legalize OPCs in 2021. New York ended up beating Rhode Island in practice with two OnPoint sites in Upper Manhattan, but Albany should follow the lead and give official state approval to the sites, which could also help them open up new funding streams.
