NIH tells Congress “Yes” to OPCs

Abstract

Overdose prevention sites (OPCs), sometimes called supervised injection sites, are hoped to help reduce the overdose deaths due to opioids, as well as provide some other benefits. But do OPCs reduce overdose deaths? Last week ADAW asked around, and few people answered, but the federal government did. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the country's top expert on research, says yes. Based on a report compiled by the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) that was sent to Congress in last year, which is an “updated literature review and evaluation of the potential public health impact of Overdose Prevention Sites in the U.S.,” while research is still in its early stages, all signs point to these sites as being helpful, and the federal government — at least the health care side, not necessarily the law enforcement side — endorses them.