New Strategies Are Needed to Stop Overdose Fatalities: The Case for Supervised Injection Facilities

Last summer, the lifeless body of a 26-year-old heroin-using man, Tim (not his real name), was discovered in the shadows of a side street in Boston. Ninety minutes before, he had come to our clinic at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, mere blocks away, pleading for help. He told us with certainty that he was going to relapse that day, ending 6 weeks of hard-earned sobriety. Our nurse offered to connect Tim to treatment at the nearby methadone clinic or our office-based addiction treatment program, but he refused. He said he wasn't ready to enter another treatment program: What he wanted, simply, was accompaniment while he used. “I'm just looking for a ‘buddy' to go with me. I don't want to die.”