SOMERVILLE is making strides toward being the first city or town in Massachusetts to open a supervised drug consumption site, an initiative that advocates say has shown promise internationally in combating overdoses.
“If we have this tool that works, then nobody needs to die,” said Sarah Evans, the division director of drug policy at the international Open Society Foundations, on the Codcast. Evans ran the first overdose prevention site in North America for eight years – InSight in Vancouver. After two decades and more than 90 worldwide safe consumption sites, no one has died at one of those centers, Evans said.
Recently released data shows Massachusetts opioid-related deaths rose in 2022. Deaths in Middlesex County, which contains Somerville, rose by 6.5 percent over the year compared to the statewide jump of 2.5 percent. Introducing safe consumption sites, where people can consume otherwise illegal drugs they have already obtained in a monitored setting with medical staff present and without the risk of legal repercussions, would not primarily be aimed at reducing overall drug use.
“This is about saving lives,” said Somerville mayor Katjana Ballantyne. “For the city of Somerville, that’s 15 to 20 lives a year. Those are our neighbors. Those could be our parents, children, friends. And that is the whole goal.”
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To tackle the opioid crisis, Mass. considers safe consumption sitesSomerville’s plan started in 2019, under then-mayor Joseph Curtatone, the same year a state commission recommended a local consumption pilot program despite bills to that effect fizzling out on Beacon Hill year over year. Gov. Charlie Baker and former US Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling expressed opposition to the practice at the time, noting that it violated federal law.
Somerville’s plan started in 2019, under then-mayor Joseph Curtatone, the same year a state commission recommended a local consumption pilot program despite bills to that effect fizzling out on Beacon Hill year over year. Gov. Charlie Baker and former US Attorney for Massachusetts Andrew Lelling expressed opposition to the practice at the time, noting that it violated federal law.
But the Somerville proposal moved forward anyway – slowly – during the pandemic, due in part to ongoing supply chain issues.
Somerville officials recently appropriated another $170,000 for the safe consumption site, adding to the $827,000 already approved for the project. Ballantyne said the city is putting together the Request for Proposals for a modular unit feasibility study, so they could get a mobile unit in place while exploring more long-term options like acquiring land or renovating buildings.
Gov. Maura Healey is a friendlier audience for safe consumption proposals in the Bay State, saying throughout her campaign that it should be left up to cities and towns. Safe consumption pilots are once again before Beacon Hill. Federally, the Biden administration is signaling an openness to allow such sites to operate.
“We are trying to be as current as possible on the legal information,” Ballantyne said. The city is watching federal response to the two New York City sites and Rhode Island’s recent legalization of safe consumption sites, “trying to be very thoughtful, very deliberate, making sure that we’re current and in the moment on how that might shift.”
Ballantyne and Evans say the sites are one of many related tools that can be used to mitigate the opioid crisis. If those struggling with addiction visit safe, centralized spaces, advocates say, they can be connected to wraparound services like rehabilitation or housing.
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About Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Smith is a staff reporter at CommonWealth magazine. A California native by way of Utah, Jennifer has spent the last 12 years in Boston, covering Massachusetts news for a variety of publications. She worked breaking news in the Boston Globe’s metro section and provided courtroom coverage of the Boston Marathon trial for the international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) while completing her undergraduate journalism degree at Northeastern University in Boston. For four years, Jennifer worked as a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on politics and development. Her work and commentary have appeared in WBUR, GBH News, Harvard Public Health Magazine, and Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook. She has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018, interviewing newsmakers, journalists, and elected officials across the state.
About Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Smith is a staff reporter at CommonWealth magazine. A California native by way of Utah, Jennifer has spent the last 12 years in Boston, covering Massachusetts news for a variety of publications. She worked breaking news in the Boston Globe’s metro section and provided courtroom coverage of the Boston Marathon trial for the international wire service Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) while completing her undergraduate journalism degree at Northeastern University in Boston. For four years, Jennifer worked as a staff writer and later news editor for the Dorchester Reporter, covering her home neighborhood and the city of Boston with a particular focus on politics and development. Her work and commentary have appeared in WBUR, GBH News, Harvard Public Health Magazine, and Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook. She has co-hosted MassINC’s Massachusetts politics and policy podcast The Horse Race since 2018, interviewing newsmakers, journalists, and elected officials across the state.
“You create a safe space where people can be treated with dignity, where they know that you are there for their safety,” Evans said. “And then out of that, a whole bunch of things can happen. People get the ability to make some other choices about their life. They get resources and can connect to care so that if they want to go into treatment, they can.”
When InSight was going to open in 2003, Evans said, staff geared up for worst case scenarios that never took shape.
“There hasn’t been like a honeypot effect,” she said. “When we opened ours in Canada, we were told that American drug users would flock to Canada to use this site. And, honestly, none of those things happened. And now we kind of laugh and think that it was ludicrous. But we have the evidence to show that essentially the positives that we anticipate come to pass; the negatives that we fear do not come to pass.”
