NEW YORK (AP) — Two modest rooms in New York City are the first places in the United States where local officials are allowing illicit drug use to make it less deadly.
The privately run “overdose prevention centers” are equipped and staffed to reverse opioid overdoses.
They are also known as safe injection sites and are a bold and contested response to a tide of overdose deaths nationwide.
Supporters see them as humane responses to a national surge in overdose deaths.
Critics see them as illegal and defeatist.
People who use drugs there say they're a place where someone is looking out to make sure that they don't die.
