Mayor Wants To Let Heroin Users Shoot Up Under Nurse Supervision

An upstate New York mayor wants his city to be the first in the U.S. to offer a supervised injection facility, where heroin users would be able to shoot up under the care of a nurse without getting arrested by police.

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick said the facility, which would also connect addicts to recovery services, is one piece of a new approach he wants his city to take against the scourge of addiction. “This part of the plan is about keeping people alive, helping them get treatment, helping them get better, but in the meantime making sure that they live long enough to get that treatment,” Svante told 1010 WINS. “Once you die from an overdose there’s no opportunity to get better, no opportunity to get treatment.”

The mayor said this facility would be staffed by nurses or physicians who could quickly administer an antidote if and when a user overdoses. But addicts also could get clean syringes and be directed to treatment and recovery programs — part of a more holistic approach that deals with addiction more like a public health issue than a criminal justice problem.

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