More than 2,100 Massachusetts residents died from an opiate-related overdose in 2023, a year after the deadliest on record, with more than 2,300.
“Every single overdose death is preventable, and therefore, we think of every overdose death really as a policy failure, and we know that harm reduction works and saves lives, prevents overdose deaths and connects people to treatment," said Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association Oami Amarasingham, one of the groups rallying at Beacon Hill to support the establishment of overdose prevention centers. “We are a nonprofit advocacy organization and we focus on public health writ large, really on community health and giving people increasing access to the fundamental building blocks of good health, the things that keep you healthy and safe where you live, work and play.”
Bills before Massachusetts legislators in the House and Senate would establish a 10-year pilot program for the centers, setting licensing standards for municipalities interested in opening their own across the commonwealth.
“Someone who is going to use drugs can come into a safe space and consume those drugs under the supervision of a trained healthcare professional who can respond immediately if there are any signs of an overdose," Amarasingham explained. "And one really troubling thing that we're seeing right now with really high overdose death rates across the state is that overdoses happen really, really quickly, and part of that is because what's in the drug supply these days, and there's just not enough time for someone who is experiencing overdose to be able to get medical care to save their life when that use is just happening out on the street.”
In 2023, Massachusetts recorded a 10% decrease in opiate-related overdose deaths, the largest drop in 13 years. Amarasingham warns that statistic masks a more complicated story.
“Especially since the COVID pandemic, we've seen the overdose death rates, the disparities between communities of color – specifically Native American communities and Black communities – go up at shocking rates, while we see between 2022 and 2023 the rate of death for white people did go down," she told WAMC. "And this is really the legacy of the racist War on Drugs that began in the 1970s and really heavily criminalized drug use and baked stigma and fear into all of those policies and led directly to mass incarceration, which, of course, undermines one's access to all of the social determinants of health, things like housing and medical treatment and employment. And so, we are up against more than 50 years of those policies, and those policies disproportionately impacted Black and Brown communities, and we continue to see that play out In the overdose death rates.”
Local Berkshire County groups like Pittsfield’s Living in Recovery and the South County Recovery Center in Great Barrington have been vocal supporters of overdose prevention centers. A 2023 poll by Beacon Research showed that 70% of more than 600 Massachusetts voters questioned supported the centers, and the Massachusetts Medical Society became the first state medical entity of its kind in the country to back them in 2017 after publishing its findings on their efficacy. This spring, three unions representing some 100,000 workers in Massachusetts joined the coalition backing the centers.
While Democratic Governor Maura Healey’s administration has endorsed overdose prevention centers, her predecessor, Republican Charlie Baker, opposed them on the grounds that they violated federal law. Other opponents to the centers claim they promote drug use and would encourage crime.
Democratic Berkshire State Representatives John Barrett and Tricia Farley-Bouvier have signed on as co-petitioners to the bill before the House.
“I have chosen to co-sponsor this legislation because we know that in Massachusetts, the harm reduction approach to the addiction crisis that we have is the one that has been proven to work, and safe injection sites this legislation seeks to facilitate opening here in Massachusetts is another approach in harm reduction," said Farley-Bouvier. “It remains a controversial issue. People are just- This is kind of nerve wracking to think that there would be a facility like this sited in a community. Important in the community is that you need local approval to get it, it's not a by-right entity that could be that could come into your, anybody's town. And I would say that with the session coming to a close, it would be difficult to get something like this through at this time. We only have, what, five weeks left of session.”
Amarasingham cautions that while overdose prevention centers are a vital tool in saving lives, they’re no silver bullet.
“There's not going to be one single policy that reverses this trend," she told WAMC. "We need all of the public health and harm reduction tools, including overdose prevention centers, and we need comprehensive policies around housing. This is a housing crisis as much as anything else, and we need all of these tools on the table to make sure that people have what they need to be safe and healthy where they live.”
