Opinion: Overdose prevention sites can help cities like Philadelphia save lives
As the health commissioner of #Philadelphia, here's why I support the creation of a supervised injection site in the city.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, cities struggling with the AIDS crisis began considering a then-radical idea: give drug users sterile needles and syringes so they wouldn’t spread HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Underlying the idea was the acceptance that some drug use was inevitable and a belief that this kind of program could reduce its harms. Opponents saw it as declaring defeat. Syringe exchange programs, they said, would only encourage drug use, worsening the HIV epidemic. But cities like Philadelphia, where I now work, were
