With a drug overdose, a person gradually stops breathing and while it is not true for marijuana, opioid use can be dangerous.

Crossing the street is dangerous—vehicles kill. That is why we have traffic lights and look both ways before crossing. For the illegal drugs we also have “traffic lights:” Don’t do drugs alone. Be sure there is someone there who can help if the user becomes helpless and could die. Have naloxone nearby to interrupt an overdose.

In cities all over the world, drug users inject, inhale, and snort in facilities where a healthcare specialist is on duty and able to interrupt the overdose, or some other health crisis that threatens the user’s well-being.

But not in the United States.

Such facilities are rare and subject to legal sanction because U.S. law can’t distinguish between a crackhouse and a healthcare facility. It’s not just stupid; it’s cruel and all too often murderous.

New York City should have dozens of these programs. Almost every needle exchange program would like to become a healthcare facility where drug users ingest drugs while a healthcare specialist oversees, ready to protect the user if things go wrong. Even with severe limitation the two facilities in New York City have interrupted 1,000 overdoses.

Needle exchange programs set up to stop the spread of H.I.V. faced opposition. “This neighborhood already has too many programs.” Or providing sterile needles and stopping the spread of disease, “Encourages drug use. There is only one message, and that is ‘Just say no.’” Drug use is wrong, accepting the conclusion that illegal drugs must be demonized. Thanks to the public health community and ACT UP’s demonstrations that delivered pithy messages supporting them, needle exchange programs can be found in metropolitan areas all over the United States. Safer consumption facilities should also become widespread.

The neighborhoods survived needle exchange, and the lives of the general public stayed the same. By and large, only drug users and local officials paid attention to the programs. Adding Supervised Injection Facilities would also neighborhood health.

Drug users should have a place to inject drugs away from public view. Many members of the public are disgusted when users take their drugs on street corners or under bridges. A city with drug consumption rooms protects the neighborhood and the privacy of drug users.

The arguments in favor of safer injection facilities are overwhelming. All over Europe, cities have adopted these programs for decades. But not here. A federal judge in Philadelphia has actually found that U.S. law prohibits these programs. Laws intended to close drug dens also stopped health programs.

This situation is more than stupid. It’s deadly. In New York City, on the average, there are about eight deaths every day from overdoses. In 2014, the state comptroller’s researchers reported 2,300 deaths. In 2021, 5,841 New Yorkers died.

Unless something positive is done, 58,000 New Yorkers will die every ten years. The number of deaths in the United States is equally startling. In 2021, 106,719 died in the U.S. That’s a million deaths every ten years.

Nothing, it seems, will persuade U.S. officials to give drug users “traffic lights” to improve their safety. During this time, fentanyl use spread and increased the risk of an overdose.

Fentanyl is easier to smuggle because just a little bit provides a powerful high. If, as Freedom Democrats advocate, these drugs were manufactured by drug companies and prescribed by doctors, only rarely would the prescription authorize fentanyl. There would have been few, if any, overdose deaths from fentanyl-laced drugs.

But because the United States gives illegal operators a monopoly, they are able to add fentanyl. But facts are facts; in the United States people were using opioids when George Washington’s troops were fighting the British, when the Union was battling the Confederacy, and when the United States entered World War I. Opioid use has a long history and will not go away. Policy makers must recognize this reality.

Opioid use is here. And if Freedom Democrats get their way, it will be a safe drug to use. Obviously, some users will want the drug every day; that has always been true, but so what.

Anybody who knows drug users knows that there are depressed people who depend on it. Others want their high right after they’ve been released from prison, forcing them to go “cold turkey” didn’t stop the memories. Indeed, one group who suffer overdose deaths are recently released persons.

Some drug users live disorganized lives, but there are others who support positive change.

Recent news reports describe such a person. Cecilia Gentili founded Trans Equity Consulting, served as director of policy at GMHC, and was board co-chair of the New Pride Agenda. The details of her death are silent on whether she was by herself when the overdose occurred, or whether she was only an occasional user and unused to the potency of fentanyl-laced heroin.

She was in the news in late September 2024 because the two dealers who sold the drugs pleaded guilty in federal court. They face prison sentences well in excess of ten years, an outcome that would probably sadden Cecilia Gentili, who spent her life helping sex workers and transgender persons live with pride. She fought laws that punished persons for their life choices.

We don’t know anything about a person if all we know is that they get high. The U.S. hostility to drug use rests on witchcraft, not science. The United States attributes magic powers to drugs like opioids, but in fact some users have no problems with their drugs, while a smaller group experience fatal consequences.

Freedom Democrats, I believe, should recognize the dangers of many illegal drugs, like heroin and methamphetamine, but society should recognize, with medical care, these drugs are and can be used safely. It makes no more sense to interfere with the doctor patient relationship by prohibiting the medical profession from prescribing drugs that help a person get high than it does to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship surrounding pregnancy.

In fact, the number of deaths from illegal abortions plummeted once government allowed women to consult and work with doctors during the difficult decision about abortion. The same positive results would happen if society allowed doctors the freedom to work with patients who use drugs, leaving it up to the doctor whether the patient will have access to pharmaceutical drugs whose purity has been verified.

It is critical to end the stigma attached to drug use that often forces users to take their drugs secretly and alone. There is no more chance of the United States becoming a nation of drugs users than lifting the stigma attached to homosexuality made everyone gay.

In fact, working with public health specialists it is possible to control drug use and prevent dangerous outcomes. Sixty years ago, on a hot summer day millions of Americans drank beer to quench their thirst. Today they drink water. That is a positive public health result, achieved with a minimum of criminal sanctions. Making drug use a crime causes deadly results. It’s time for us to welcome drug users into society rather than punish them for their habit. The law also ruins the lives of drug sellers with long prison sentences. The only reason they have a market is because the law makes drugs illegal. If drugs were legal, doctors and patients could make their problems manageable.

 Overdoses are proof that society is failing to provide healthcare.