A top federal drug official tacitly endorsed the idea of authorizing safe consumption sites where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment, arguing that evidence has effectively demonstrated that the facilities can prevent overdose deaths.<\/p>\n
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow commented on the harm reduction model at the STAT Summit last week.<\/p>\n
She separately talked about the path forward for researching the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics to inform drug development.<\/p>\n
While Volkow has frequently promoted harm reduction policies to treat addiction like a public health issue, her remarks about safe injection facilities stand out, especially as the Justice Department is in active litigation that started after the Trump administration challenged the opening of such a center in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
The official declined to specifically say what she would do if she were president and the lawsuit was dropped, but she said that safe consumption sites that have been the subject of research \u201chave shown that it has saved a significant [percentage of] patients from overdosing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the conference appearance remarks, portions of which where earlier reported by STAT, Volkow said<\/a> that she\u2019s personally followed up with clinics that provide the service to ask whether they\u2019ve had success even with stronger opioids like fentanyl entering the illicit market, and she\u2019s been told that the sites are reporting zero overdose deaths.<\/p>\n Facing the Addiction Epidemic with STAT\u2019s @levfacher<\/a> and Nora Volkow of @NIDAnews<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/yV2K0Eufmj<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 STAT (@statnews) November 16, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s preventing people from dying,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to look at it as a solution in context,\u201d adding that expanded distribution of naloxone is also contributing to saving lives of people who use drugs.<\/p>\n The comments represent one of the strongest positions in favor of safe consumption sites to come from a federal official, and they\u2019re all the more notable given the federal government\u2019s position in a lawsuit that\u2019s so far blocked the non-profit Safehouse from providing the service.<\/p>\n That said, the White House drug czar recently said that the Biden administration is\u00a0reviewing broader drug policy harm reduction proposals<\/a>, including the authorization of supervised consumption sites\u2014and he went so far as to suggest possible decriminalization.<\/p>\n Volkow, who recently said that drug criminalization has \u201ccreated a structurally racist system,\u201d<\/a> also discussed the growing interest in psychedelics medicine at the STAT summit last week, though she said that research has not yet caught up on the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, the fact that the evidence is not there does not mean that they may not have a product,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is, again, coming back to the science that says why it is urgent and imperative that we do research with the psychedelic drugs so that we can understand, first of all, what may be the molecular mechanisms of action.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can understand the active ingredients in the molecules of psychedelics, we may be able to get an insight about what may be therapeutic benefits and optimize them,\u201d Volkow said.<\/p>\n With respect to safe consumption sites, New York City opened the\u00a0first sanctioned harm reduction centers in the U.S.<\/a> late last year, and officials have already reported positive results in saving lives.<\/p>\n A study published by the American Medical Association (AMA) in July found that the those facilities have decreased overdose risk<\/a>, steered people away from using in public and provided other ancillary health services to people who use currently illicit substances.<\/p>\n Volkow said that she\u2019s been communicating with the professionals who operate the city\u2019s sites.<\/p>\n While the Biden administration is still investigating the clinical efficacy of such facilities, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Rahul Gupta said that the proposal to lift the existing federal ban is on the table.<\/p>\n DOJ said in February that it is actively \u201cevaluating supervised consumption sites<\/a>, including discussions with state and local regulators about appropriate guardrails for such sites, as part of an overall approach to harm reduction and public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n In October, the Supreme Court\u00a0rejected a request to hear a case<\/a> on the legality of establishing the Safehouse facilities, but the case is still before a lower federal court. Attorneys for the proposed site say that they\u2019ve had \u201cproductive\u201d conversations with DOJ<\/a>\u00a0in recent months, which is part of the reason why they\u2019ve mutually agreed to extend the deadline for a federal response in the case several times.<\/p>\n Most recently, last week, lawyers for Safehouse and DOJ participated<\/a> in a status conference before the federal judge in the case. The Biden administration has until December 5 to file a formal response in the lawsuit under the current timeline.<\/p>\n The National Institutes of Health (NIH)\u00a0put out a pair of requests for applications<\/a>\u00a0(RFAs) in December for an effort that will provide funding for efforts to investigate how that and other harm reduction policies could help address the drug crisis.<\/p>\n Gupta previously said that it\u2019s critical to explore \u201cany and every option\u201d to reduce overdose deaths, and that\u00a0could include allowing safe consumption sites<\/a>\u00a0for illegal substances if the evidence supports their efficacy.<\/p>\n The secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, has also signaled that the Biden administration would not move to block the establishment safe injection sites, stressing that \u201cwe are literally trying to give users a lifeline.\u201d<\/p>\n But a department spokesperson\u00a0later walked those remarks back<\/a>, stating that \u201cHHS does not have a position on supervised consumption sites\u201d and the \u201cissue is a matter of ongoing litigation.\u201d In any case, it would be up to DOJ to decide whether to pursue operators of the facilities under the Controlled Substances Act.<\/p>\n A New York Assembly committee advanced a bill in May to establish a statewide safe consumption site program<\/a>, allowing regulators to authorize facilities where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment.<\/p>\n In a pair of setbacks for advocates, however, Vermont\u2019s governor vetoed a bill in June that would have simply created a working group tasked with crafting a plan to open safe consumption sites<\/a> and the governor of California vetoed a bill<\/a> in August to permit a pilot program for the harm reduction centers.<\/p>\n New York Officials Award First Marijuana Dispensary Licenses To People Harmed By Drug War<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Jernej Furman<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Top Federal Drug Official Says Safe Consumption Sites Are Proven To Save Lives As DOJ Weighs Ending Legal Battle<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A top federal drug official tacitly endorsed the idea of authorizing safe consumption sites where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment, arguing that evidence has effectively demonstrated that the facilities can prevent overdose deaths. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow commented onContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58319,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58318\/revisions\/58319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Top Federal Drug Official Says Safe Consumption Sites Are Proven To Save Lives As DOJ Weighs Ending Legal Battle<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"