Mayor Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, is considering implementing several safe injection sites throughout New York City. The purpose of these potential sites would be to allow citizens to inject illegal drugs in supervised, contained areas to prevent overdoses. Hypothetically, safe injection sites would help prevent litter from used needles, a problem that has grown increasingly worse in the city. Several European countries and Australia have already implemented sites such as these, while New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Vermont and Delaware have proposed safe injection sites as well (National Public Radio Inc).

However, safe injection sites only encourage illegal drug use and normalize it. This encouragement and normalization would only cause an increase in opioid usage, as well as, waste taxpayer dollars on expensive havens that propel destructive and unhealthy drug use.  

I understand the logic of Mayor de Blasio. Instead of letting people use drugs in an excessive, pollutive manner, he wants people to use them in a contained, supervised way. However, by spending money on these supervised sites, the mayor would essentially be inciting breaking the law. 

No matter the law, a mayor should never encourage his citizens to perform illegal actions. Likewise, Mayor de Blasio should not create shelters for people to break the law by using unlawful drugs, especially since the money that will be used to build these sites would be coming from taxpayers like you and me.

The use of opioids causes paranoia, respiratory depression, nausea, liver damage and brain damage. Do we really want to create designated areas for people to continue harming their mental and physical health, or do we want to use that money and time for rehabilitation centers?

Rather than creating an outlet for people to continue dangerous drug use, this money ought to be used to improve rehabilitation centers and mental health services that could lend a helping hand in decreasing opioid addiction. If Mayor de Blasio’s safe injection sites are implemented, we are giving up. We are assuming that no matter how hard we try, the war on drugs can never be won.

Instead of giving up, we need to make strides towards a decrease in illegal drug use. People will not stop abusing opioids if they are given designated shelters to continue using them without any legal repercussions.

Now more than ever American citizens must recognize the importance of preventing opioid addiction. But we will not prevent it by harboring it. Rather, we must recognize its harmful nature and take measures to limit its use.