This past year, there were 122 heroin-related deaths in Oregon, with 80 in Portland’s tri-county area. According to county officials, heroin use in our city has increased steadily over the past few years.
Heroin-related deaths have gone from double digits in the 1980s and early 1990s to more than 100 annually during the past two decades.
It appears Portland’s long love affair with heroin has grown more intense — and more deadly — over the years.
And the homeless population is hit hardest. While people experiencing homelessness make up less than 1 percent of Multnomah County’s total population, they accounted for 25 percent of heroin-related deaths in the county in 2014.
In recent months, public drug injection has been on a list of complaints citizen and business groups cite when applying pressure to City Hall to find solutions for Portland’s highly visible homeless population. The abundance of improperly discarded needles dotting our downtown landscape have also drawn criticism and been the subject of several TV news reports this year.
Multnomah County has acted as a national leader in harm reduction, adopting various policies over the years, from syringe exchange to wide distribution of naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug that has helped save lives.
These programs place compassion above criminalization and serve as long-term solutions to reducing recidivism and addiction.
As local government struggles to balance the demands of social service agencies and downtown businesses, Street Roots urges both the city and the Multnomah County Health Department to allocate additional resources toward implementing next-level harm reduction strategies when thinking about how to get a handle on widespread heroin use in downtown Portland.
While it wouldn’t be a fix-all, Street Roots believes one approach would address many problems associated with intravenous drug use in our city’s center: establishing a supervised injection site.
Numerous peer-reviewed studies have shown supervised injection sites significantly reduce public drug use and deaths from overdose, while increasing enrollment in drug treatment programs among intravenous drug users. Injection sites also reduce the number of improperly discarded needles.
Operating in Europe, Canada and Australia, these sites generally offer a dedicated space where intravenous drug users can inject previously obtained drugs out of public view and under the supervision of medical professionals. Staff is there to intervene with life-saving measures in the event of an overdose and to provide further education. Most importantly, staff also provides counseling and a connection to resources when users are ready to quit – and quit they do. One study of Vancouver B.C.’s injection facility, Insite, found that before the study period ended, 23 percent of respondents had stopped injecting drugs, and another 57 percent had entered treatment.
Portland can continue to lead the nation in effective harm-reduction policies by establishing the first supervised injection site in the United States. It’s not a question of whether an injection site will help reduce heroin’s impact on our city; it’s a question of whether our city and county leaders and local law enforcement agencies have the courage to invest in and support a solution that works, even if it’s controversial.
Read an in-depth report from Street Roots: Safe-injection sites: Seeking a solution to public IV drug use.