USA. These NYC centers allow heroin and crack use in-house. Nearly 5 years in, is it helping?
USA. These NYC centers allow heroin and crack use in-house. Nearly 5 years in, is it helping?
In a back room behind a colorful facade in northern Manhattan, drug users are smoking crack while nearby cubicles stand ready for heroin users to wrap tourniquets around their arms and inject themselves with new, sterilized needles.
It's all part of a 5-year-old experiment sanctioned by the city of New York, but not by the federal government, which has long-standing anti-"crack house" laws criminalizing facilities that allow for drug use.
Supporters say the supervised drug-use sites reduce overdose deaths and street drug use, and serve as a model for the rest of the country. But critics say the centers are magnets for hard drug users and dealers, leaving the local community feeling less safe. (CBS News, USA, 07.08.2026)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nyc-drug-addiction-onpoint-harm-reduction/