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Embraced bythe Senate Public Safety Committee, Safe Injection Sites in California are now approved under Senate Bill 57. Beyond legalizing overdose prevention programs, also known as safe consumption sites or safe injection sites, clinicians believe the step forward could open the door to more pharmacological interventions. WithCalifornia, pilot programs starting in San Francisco, Oakland, and the County of Los Angeles, local governments and their citizenry will now choose whether to move forward.

Thus SB 57 is not a direct mandate but merely the removal of California state prohibitions that currently makes such programs illegal. If enacted, the program has a five-year window to prove its effectiveness. Thus, it begins in 2022 and ends on January 1, 2027. A greateroverview of the officialhearingson April 6thcan be found here in PDF format. From the perspective of Tarzana Treatment Centers (TTC), harm reduction efforts like safe injection sites make sense. They lessen the damage of the opioid use disorder crisis and save lives.

Will Safe Injection Sites Lead to More Pharmacological Interventions?

In conjunction with the Senate Public Safety Committee opening the door to safe injection sites, NIDA CTN (National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network)annual steering committee is taking place right now. With a focus on the opioid use disorder crisis and the rise in pharmacological interventions, the CTN presentations dovetail with the safe injection sites. Most importantly, after a 20-year systematic review of CTN studies, pharmacological interventions show a marked improvement in treatment outcomes.

With the rise in overdoses nationwide, particularly due to the greater availability of illegal fentanyl, new strategies are necessary. For example, according to CTN data, there is a substantial increase in African American opioid overdose deaths in recent years. It is difficult to know whether the implementation of harm reduction efforts would have reduced these numbers. Thus, are safe injection sites are a pharmacological intervention or a behavioral intervention?

Since behavioral interventions alone do not have the best record of positive outcomesin recent years, most clinicians believe that MAT (medications for addiction treatment) pharmacological interventions need to become the norm. However, MAT interventions continue to spread slowly due to low reimbursement rates. Thus, many medical providers are unwilling to embrace MAT interventions because they fear a drain on their financial resources.

California Safe Injection Sites Equal A MAT-Education Opportunity

Given the success of MAT, governments and insurance companies need to improve reimbursement rates for pharmacological interventions. There need to be incentives for both medical providers and patients to use MAT. Although such incentives for medical providers are financial, capital is not the way to help opioid users. Rather, although investment is a necessity, the investment should be in education and awareness.

Tarzana Treatment Centers knows that providing education and raising awareness is essential from experience as a trailblazer in MAT treatment options. When patients know about medications for addiction treatment, they are more likely to accept treatment offerings. Thus, California safe injection sites need to go hand-in-hand with educational opportunities that raise awareness.

Ultimately, these harm reduction sites need to lead to higher recovery rates and better treatment outcomes. Otherwise, they are a bandage on a wound that is not healing. Indeed, the bandage is not enough when lives are at stake. Instead, safe injection sites need to educate opioid users about the success of pharmacological interventions.