Commentary: US urgently needs safe drug-injection sites, but they're illegal

In the 1990s, Vancouver, British Columbia, experienced an overdose crisis similar to the epidemic sweeping the United States. The surge was driven by a potent supply of China White heroin. The city saw more than 1,300 fatal overdoses over the course of the decade. During the worst year of the crisis, 1998, there were about 400 fatal overdoses across the province.

This rate of fatal overdoses was considered so unfathomable that Vancouver was galvanized into action. Activists marched in the streets and occupied City Hall, demanding that drug users