Nearly Five Years In, New York's Supervised Drug-Use Sites Divide a City

Nearly five years after New York City sanctioned the nation's first publicly acknowledged supervised drug-use sites, the two facilities remain a flashpoint — praised by operators as lifesaving and condemned by some neighbors and Republican officials as illegal and harmful.

At a location in northern Manhattan, participants smoke crack in a back room while cubicles nearby are stocked with sterilized needles for people who inject heroin, CBS News reported. The centers, known as overdose prevention centers, operate with the backing of the city but not the federal government, which has long-standing anti-"crack house" statutes criminalizing facilities that permit drug use.

Sam Rivera, executive director of OnPoint NYC, told CBS News his team has intervened in more than 2,100 overdoses with no fatalities. He said the organization has more than 7,000 registered participants who have used its services 250,000 times since 2021.

"250,000 times people used inside with us, not in the parks, not in the street, not in the playgrounds, not in bathrooms," Rivera said.

Beyond the smoking room and injection booths, OnPoint's East Harlem site offers primary medical care, addiction medication, art therapy, sleep rooms, laundry, massage, acupuncture and aromatherapy. "Those things are medicine," Rivera said. "Those things are reducing drug use, introducing people into an environment that loves them."

Some residents disagree. "You couldn't pay me to walk down that street anymore," said Syderia Asberry-Chresfield, co-founder of the Greater Harlem Coalition, who said dealers now sell openly. Led Black, founder of the media organization Uptown Collective, who lives blocks from the Washington Heights site, said: "You don't want the kids downtown to see it. Why is it OK for the kids up here to see it?" An educator at a nearby school, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the scenes frighten children walking to class.

Saritha Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor running for New York attorney general as a Republican, called the sites "unethical" and "definitely illegal," noting the East Harlem location sits across from an early childhood center. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a New York Republican, last year asked then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to shut the facility down, saying it enables addiction.

Supervised consumption sites have operated internationally for two decades, with more than 100 worldwide, including the well-known Vancouver facility open since 2003. Federal data show US overdose deaths peaked at nearly 108,000 in 2022 before beginning to decline, according to the CDC.