States consider ‘safe injection sites’ for narcotics to prevent ODs, other health issues [Video]

DENVER (AP) — In a Colorado mountain town, Christine Collins injected herself with black tar heroin while hanging out with friends in her cozy basement a few days after her 30th birthday. Sitting beneath a Happy Birthday sign with hearts scrawled in colorful sharpies, she overdosed.

She awoke to the screams of her friends who fumbled to administer doses of naloxone, which reversed the overdose and pulled Collins back from near death. She has seen dozens of friends wake up from overdoses, and known dozens more that never did.

Such scenes of terror have increasingly played out from Denver’s snow-filled streets to rural towns in West Virginia, with drug overdoses killing over an estimated 100,000 people in 2021, according federal health official’s latest data. That’s roughly one overdose death every five minutes.

The snowballing death toll has pushed lawmakers in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada to consider joining New York and Rhode Island in allowing what are often called “safe injection sites.” Also …