“Overdoses of opioid drugs, including powerful prescription painkillers and heroin, have killed almost 250,000 Americans since 2000”. Authorities are highly concerned with the abuse of this drug. They are persistently trying to find a cure. The reason Opioids can be dangerous is because they stimulate a part of the brain that controls respiration, so someone who overdoses may stop breathing (Katel). Opioid is a drug that can be used in either a harmful or beneficial way and we are now seeing it used often for a harmful cause. A few cities are trying to create an injection site for addicts to shoot up their drugs. This safe environment is trying create a place where addicts can still have their thirst for drugs and use them, but with medical treatment, where doctors are watching and helping them ween off the drug. An official injection site was opened up in Vancouver, British Columbia. Here, they kept data from Jan. 1, 2001, to Sept. 20, 2003, before the site had been opened, and again from Sept. 21, 2003, to Dec. 31, 2005, the successful 2 years of working with addicts (Katel). The results of the data showed that the deaths of addicts decreased 35% between these dates (Katel). Several other cities are not sure if they too are going to open up the …show more content…
People are trying to cure the epidemic of drug abuse. The first step in solving this is realizing that Opioid is just a disease, rather a human weakness (Katel). We must have the view point of wanting to help these people, putting everyone together working for a cause (Katel). Injection sites can have a positive outcome because it allows a safe place for people struggling with addiction to come and try to work out their problem. There is always supervision and doctors are there to help when needed. One might think injection sites are a major flaw, but as said earlier, statistics show that fewer users had a drug addiction problem after being at the injection