A Boston nonprofit plans to soon test a new way of addressing the city's heroin epidemic. The idea is simple. Along a stretch of road that has come to be called Boston's "Methadone Mile," the program will open a room in March with a nurse, some soft chairs and basic life-saving equipment — a place where heroin users can ride out their high, under medical supervision.
Dr. Jessie Gaeta, chief medical officer at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which initiated the project, walks the avenue several times a day on her way to and from work. The path takes her past the city's needle exchange program and a methadone clinic, as well as past one of the city's busiest emergency rooms, at Boston Medical Center.
"There are people — just in the few blocks around our building and hospital — that we're watching overdose on our way from the parking lot," Gaeta says.
Addiction treatment providers in the area have had hushed conversations for many months about creating a safe place where heroin users could get high. At least eight countries around the world have some sort of supervised injection facilities, monitored by nurses, where patients can both use drugs and rest or sleep off the effects.
[For more of this story, written by Martha Bebinger, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...fer-place-to-be-high]
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