Rhode Island is the first state to introduce safe injection sites, where addicts can go to get their drugs tested for Fentanyl and can get clean needles to do the illegal drugs. On top of all that, Rhode Islanders  can do the illegal drugs inside of the safe injection sites, where trained people are equipped with Narcan incase of an overdose. Honestly, I think the state wants to do more harm reduction, but it feels like they’re going  so far to the point where it’s just enabling addicts. It probably does lower the overdose rate, but it’s just making these hard drugs that ruin peoples lives okay.

There are many people who are pro safe injection sites that want less strict criminal penalties for Fentanyl related drugs, even though around 40% of all drugs tested for Fentanyl have a deadly dose in only 2 milligrams. The synthetic opioid produces a similar effect to morphine, but it’s 100 times stronger. Overdose caused by Fentanyl may be the leading cause of accidental death in America, but that doesn’t mean that we should just give up and let people who are selling Fentanyl and causing this overdose spike get off without getting a minimum sentence. There needs to be more punishment for the dealer, not the user, but the drugs users  are using are still illegal and making a safe space for them to use these drugs is just enabling them.  

The people running this project say that they can provide an access point to other services like housing, medical care and treatment. But how many  users will truly use those other services when they have a place where they can do drugs with no legal consequences? At that point, the state should just make the drugs legal, so they could at least get the tax money from it. This space will only help keep overdose numbers down, but those people need real help, not a safe space to use those drugs. 

Space to do those drugs is not helping; it’s just prolonging other problems. Prolonging those problems will just make them worse and create a bigger problem that will have to be fixed. The problem is that the number of people using drugs could increase because there would be no legal penalty for doing drugs, and sometimes that is all it takes for some people to not do drugs. 

Is drug addiction just at a point where it’s so normal that we are just accepting it? Instead of changing it, are we just going to try to help keep people from overdosing on the drugs that they chose to use?