So-called supervised consumption sites offer drug users the ability to take advantage of a clean, medically supervised environment, thus eliminating many risks while additionally offering support for getting clean.

By Jim Clark

Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone announced last week that he intends to open a supervised consumption site (SCS) somewhere in the city next year.

“The death toll in this opioids epidemic is too high for us to continue to act like the status quo has any chance of fixing it,” Mayor Curtatone asserted in a public statement. “Supervised consumption sites may offend the War on Drugs mentality of some federal officials, but that mentality has done nothing but make this plague of addiction worse. These are our family and friends. This is in every neighborhood, even if it doesn’t seem that way when you walk around your block. It doesn’t take the form of street crime. It’s mostly quiet suffering behind closed doors.”

While operation of a SCS may violate state and federal laws, Curtatone remains adamant that the legal battles such a proposal would most likely incur are inconsequential compared to the cost in human lives that failing to do so would involve.

“The question facing us is do we want to lower our death toll or to posture while the body count rises? The decision we’ve reached is we intend to keep people alive. That’s exactly what these sites do. They also put people a step closer to treatment,” according to Curtatone.

SCS’s are legally sanctioned, medically supervised facilities designed to provide a hygienic and stress-free environment in which individuals are able to consume illicit recreational drugs intravenously and reduce nuisance from public drug use.

Earlier this year, the then Somerville Board of Aldermen requested that the Director of Health and Human Services report on the feasibility of situating such a facility in Somerville.

At the time, Ward 4 Alderman – now Councilor – Jesse Clingan told the Board, “There’s been a rash of overdose deaths in the city in the last month. I just think that we need to look at whatever tools we have in the toolbox. What I would say about safe injection facilities is I think the misconception out there that the public has is that active users are getting high, like these are shooting galleries. But these are actually medical facilities where most people are using to get well, they’re not using to get high.”

Ward 1’s Matthew McLaughlin also spoke in favor of looking into the possible benefits of such a program saying, “Unfortunately, opiates are still in the news,” Even a decade after these problems started. And the problem has not subsided at all. And I think this sounds outlandish. It sounds like kind of counter-intuitive to assist somebody in using drugs. How is that going to help? But there’s been 75 studies since 2014 that has indicated that this actually helps. This gets people in treatment. At the very least it prevents disease, and it prevents needles being spread around.”

The mayor’s current proposal is still in its initial planning stages, with many legal challenges sure to be met as the process unfolds. Still, Curtatone indicates that he is committed to see it through to completion.