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WHAT’S THE HARM IN HARM REDUCTION? The case for legalizing overdose prevention centers Words by Daisy Polowetzky Art by Maddie Sloyer | Designed by Molly Zagroba
Whether you realize it or not, every time you buckle your seatbelt before driving a car, adjust your helmet before riding a bike or lather on a layer of sunscreen before laying on the beach, you are practicing harm reduction. You are taking safety measures to reduce the effects of engaging in unsafe activity. Harm reduction is a strategy of meeting people with substance abuse disorders “where they’re at,” according to the National Harm Reduction Coalition. Harm reduction does not focus solely on sobriety, or abstaining from drug use. Rather, harm reduction seeks to prevent opioid overdoses and deaths. To address the opioid crisis in New York State, overdose prevention sites must be legalized at the state level. OnPoint NYC is the largest harm reduction organization in the East Coast, with locations in East Harlem and Washington Heights. OnPoint operates overdose prevention centers (OPCs), also called supervised injection facilities (SIFs) and safe injection sites (SISs), where people with substance abuse disorders can use pre-obtained drugs in the presence of qualified healthcare professionals. Currently, OPCs are only legal in New York City, not in the rest of New York state, according to the New York City Health Department. OPCs are not places for people with substance abuse disorders to simply get high and leave— OPCs save lives. Harm reduction can look and sound different for different people. It can mean helping people who use drugs switch from
injecting a drug to ingesting a drug, or switching from using drugs in public to using drugs at home. Small steps of harm reduction can lead to lifechanging outcomes. If a drug user can go from injecting drugs to ingesting drugs—for example—by eliminating their use of needles, they decrease their risk of contracting diseases such as hepatitis C or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), according to the Centers for Disease Control. New York State has been gripped by opioids for decades, especially in Onondaga County. In 2022, the U.S. Census Bureau found that 12.7% of Syracuse families earn less than $10,000 a year. In Syracuse, opioids have been destroying communities. The presence of the city’s three hospitals— Upstate University Medical Hospital, Crouse Hospital and the Syracuse VA Medical Center— coupled with the fact that Syracuse is the nearest city to neighboring counties, makes Syracuse a breeding ground for access to opioids, according to Barry Weiss, administrative officer for the Office of the Onondaga District Attorney. “We’re not advertising [opioids],” Weiss said. “It’s just the resources are here.” Legal OPCs in NYC have been proven to be effective from both a public health and economic standpoint. A study from Weill Cornell Medical College found that establishing four OPCs would prevent 130 overdoses in NYC and save the NYC Health Department up to $7 million a year. If these measures could save over 100 lives and millions of