France Is Testing Safe Drug Consumption Rooms for Opioid Addicts
Halfway through a six-year trial, more users are getting medical care and fewer are discarding needles in the street.
Céline Debaulieu manages a supervised injection site in Paris.
Photographer: Julie Glassberg for Bloomberg BusinessweekBefore October 2016, Marie used crack and opioids in public bathrooms around Paris. Waiting to get into the stalls, which were frequently littered with syringes, the 27-year-old student feared being arrested or attacked by fellow users. Inside, she witnessed thefts, rapes, and prostitution. Now she injects skénan, a morphine painkiller that she buys on the black market, in a regulated clinic under the supervision of medical staff.
Today, Marie, who requested a pseudonym to protect her anonymity, is among the 160 or so daily visitors at Paris’s supervised consumption room, close to the Gare du Nord train station in the north of the city. Most inject illegal opioid medicines and inhale crack; others take cocaine or heroin. Users bring their own drugs (police won’t charge them with personal possession in the surrounding streets), while staff members issue clean needles, send drug samples to labs to check purity, and intervene in emergencies. The facility also has a lounge, library, and arts space. “This is a place of real social reintegration and warmth,” Marie says. “We are a strong marginal community.”