New Mexico introduced an OPC authorization bill that got a favorable report from the state Health and Human Services Committee in February, but didn’t progress farther than that. Maryland, which proposed authorizing up to six sites, and Hawaii, which recently expanded access to harm reduction services, have followed that same trajectory. So has Massachusetts, which in 2024 saw senators unanimously advance an OPC bill that didn’t get across the finish line in time.

New York’s long-awaited OPC bill is currently with the Senate Health Committee, which has been reviewing it since late April. Legislators have introduced versions of the bill each session going back to 2017.

After two months without an update, Maine’s OPC bill is scheduled for a committee hearing May 15.

In 2021 New York City opened the first two sanctioned OPC in the United States under its own local authorization, a move that other cities have been hesitant to replicate because of the potential the Department of Justice will sue while OPC remain federally banned under the 1986 “crack house statute.” San Francisco harm reductionists openly operated an OPC in the Tenderloin Center in 2022; then-Mayor London Breed (D) shut it down later that year. 

Connecticut’s OPC bill was introduced by the Public Health Committee, which has attempted similar legislation in the past. SB 1285 would authorize up to four sites in different parts of the state, while prohibiting use of state funds to support them, as is expected of such legislation. 

Maine’s OPC bill was approved by both chambers in March. After more than two months without an update, the bill will reappear May 15 for a hearing with the Criminal Justice and Safety Committee.

Illinois proposed an OPC bill that’s been in the House Rules Committee since April, and in early May acquired a new sponsor. “Nothing About Us Without Us,” states HB 2929 as the first of its core principles. “OPS programs and services shall be formulated with transparency, community involvement and direct input by people who use substances.”

The Arizona legislature has preemptively banned “narcotics injection sites.”

In Rhode Island, a bill to extend the current OPC pilot to March 2028 reinvigorated opposition to the initial authorization itself, but has progressed to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Rhode Island was the first state to authorize OPC, followed by Minnesota and Vermont, but remains the only one of the three to have opened a site.

Minnesota is in a holding pattern with no imminent plans to move forward. Vermont, which authorized OPC in a tumultuous 11th-hour override of the veto issued by Governor Phil Scott (R) in 2024, is preparing to open a site in Burlington. A bill to repeal that authorization was introduced to the Vermont legislature in January, and is still in committee.

In at least one other state, an anti-OPC effort has progressed further. On May 7, the Arizona legislature passed a bill to preemptively ban municipalities from authorizing the facilities. If signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), HB 2798 will explicitly prohibit “narcotics injection sites,” an unconventional term sponsors have chosen to describe a ban that’s not specific to narcotics nor to injection. The bill clarifies that the definition of the term includes non-injection methods of drug consumption as well as non-narcotic (i.e. non-opioid) substances. Arizona has never previously introduced legislation to authorize OPC, and wasn’t attempting it this session either.

Screenshot (cropped) from “Rhode Island’s First Overdose Prevention Center” video by Marilena Marchetti

The post Overdose Prevention Center Bills in Multiple States Inch Forward appeared first on Filter.

On January 20, a group of about seven health care workers and community advocates set up an OPC outside North Island Hospital Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. They join the growing ranks of Doctors for Safer Drug Policy (DSDP), which formed in November 2024 when members opened a short-term unsanctioned OPC in Victoria and another in Nanaimo.

Comox Valley pop-up organizer Dr. Eva Hemmerich told Filter that many of the hospital’s patients use drugs, and in order to avoid withdrawal every couple of hours—particularly with fentanyl—people were going to remote areas where they could use alone.

“They have to hide and [use] in a stairwell, in the bathroom, in the parking lot or on hospital grounds. And at times, they overdose and die,” Hemmerich said. “There have been people dying in the bathroom. Or in the forest. In the bushes. It’s unbelievable.”

Several days before the launch of the Comox Valley Hospital OPC, organizers received a letter, which has been reviewed by Filter, from Vancouver Island Health Authority’s director of legal services. 

“If Doctors for Safer Drug Policy or its members proceed with any unapproved clinical service or demonstration on Island Health property,” the letter states, “this would necessitate the involvement of our security services team and potentially the local police.”

The pop-up was met by about a dozen private security guards and Royal Canadian Mounted Police outside Comox Valley Hospital on the morning of January 20. Hemmerich characterized the response as “respectful and quietly supportive.” Similar to what unfolded at the Victoria and Nanaimo pop-ups in November, the OPC had to move a few feet from the original location so that it was technically off hospital grounds, and was otherwise permitted to operate. It had its first participant within a couple of hours. The group plans to operate 10 am to 6 pm through January 24.

“What is lacking right now [in Newfoundland] is understanding what people are using. There’s little to no research.”

Dr. Jessica Wilder, who cofounded Doctors for Safer Drug Policy and organized the pop-up OPC at Nanaimo, told Filter that health care workers and harm reduction advocates across Canada have reached out to DSDP to learn about how to replicate their model. The group has created a 36-page toolkit that outlines how hospital workers can organize pop-up OPC and what to expect, and has been sharing it widely.

“[It contains] as much information as we can possibly provide to make it as easy as possible for somebody to replicate these actions,” Wilder said. “And all the hard lessons that we learned throughout.”

DSDP also created a map of locations where it’s communicated with people about launching an OPC. Several are in the early planning stages and organizers did not wish to be interviewed out of concern for government reprisal.

On the East Coast, Newfoundland harm reductionist Luca Shaefer and a dozen other volunteers were already working on opening a pop-up OPC when they heard the call from DSDP.

“I was really just overjoyed to be a part of a simultaneous, coincidental call to action,” Shaefer told Filter. “We are thinking of having it near a hospital, near a place in St John’s Newfoundland called Long’s Hill.”

They’ve raised about $3,000 and plan to launch sometime in the next month. Schaefer also noted that compared to BC, there are less data available on the drug supply in Newfoundland.

“I feel like what is lacking right now is understanding what people are using. There’s little to no research,” she said. “I think St John’s is catching up in terms of applying and integrating harm reduction to a lot of outreach and frontline work here.” 

“What I find bizarre, in a way, is that Island Health believes as much in the need for [OPC] as we do.”

Hemmerich said that her patients who currently use drugs as well as her patients in recovery have expressed support for the Comox Valley Hospital pop-up. Not having to worry about going through withdrawal would make people less hesitant to go to the hospital in the first place. 

Hemmerich runs an opioid agonist therapy clinic and is the medical lead for AIDS Vancouver Island’s safe supply program, which prescribes pharmaceutical fentanyl to a small number of patients in the Comox Valley. A family doctor for most of her career, the overdose crisis pushed Hemmerich to switch to addiction medicine. More than 16,000 people have died of overdose in British Columbia since the crisis was declared a public health emergency in 2016.

“What I find bizarre, in a way, is that Island Health believes as much in the need for OPS as we do,” Hemmerich said. 

Leaked documents obtained by Filter show that in September 2023, provincial health authorities began drawing up plans to launch government-sanctioned OPC at three hospitals. The plan was dropped in April 2024.

“The [provincial] government is where the problem lies, and Island Health will do as the government dictates,” Hemmerich said. “The government has prioritized politics over addressing the toxic drug crisis.”

On January 21, BC’s new health minister, Josie Osborne, told Filter that plans are under way to finalize minimum service standards for OPC, but did not provide details about what those standards are nor who is finalizing them.

“This work is ongoing and I will provide an update as soon as I can,” Osborne said. “In the meantime, we are going to keep building and expanding mental health and addiction services so people can get the care they need, where and when they need it.” 

The statement provided to Filter also pointed to existing addiction services at hospitals in Victoria and Nanaimo. But Dr. Wilder, who works as the lead physician on the addictions medicine team at the Nanaimo’s Regional General Hospital, said those programs are insufficient, which is part of why the unsanctioned OPC opened to begin with.

Image (cropped) via Doctors for Safer Drug Policy/Google Maps

The post More Unsanctioned OPC to Pop Up Outside Hospitals Across Canada appeared first on Filter.