Report: Underground safe havens provide safe space for opioid users

<p>A new report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that underground safe havens are offering opioid users a safe place to do drugs while a staff monitors them.</p>

News 12 Staff

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Aug 8, 2017, 10:26 PM

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Updated 2,457 days ago

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A new report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that underground safe havens are offering opioid users a safe place to do drugs while a staff monitors them.

Injection sites are different than needle exchange programs like the one that is usually set up in Hempstead to provide clean syringes.

According to the report, injection sites have trained staff to give overdose reversal drugs, but no one at the sites has a medical license.

The researchers say these sites are unsanctioned and could be illegal. The sites are legal in countries such as Australia, Canada and France.

Tatiana Green, a former addict from Franklin Square, called the safe haven sites a good idea.

"When an addict is in that position and they want to use, they're going to use and they're not going to stop using until they're ready to stop," she said.

Researchers for the American Journal of Preventive Medicine chose to hide where the safe havens were located.

President Donald Trump addressed the opioid crisis Tuesday from his golf course in New Jersey.

"It is a horrible thing what's going on with opioids and other drugs, but the opioid is something … no one has seen anything like it," said the president.

In 2016, nearly 500 people died from taking opioids on Long Island.