The Intelligencer
How a once fringe idea — making it safe to get high — became a reality.
I’m nearly two hours into an interview with Sam Rivera, who runs one of America’s first supervised-drug-consumption sites, when a voice cuts abruptly through his serene, incense-filled office.
“Code Blue,” a radio crackles. Two floors below me, someone has just overdosed.
It is the 80th overdose in just five weeks between two sites operated by the nonprofit group OnPoint NYC; this one is in East Harlem, the other in Washington Heights. “We are like an ER here,” says Rivera, the group’s executive director. “Just wait here. Don’t leave the room,” he says and hurries out the door to investigate.
Less than 30 minutes later, he’s back, sweat glistening on his forehead. He tells me that a young woman who had injected fentanyl started to have trouble breathing and began to lose consciousness. The staff gave her oxygen and, sensing that wasn’t enough, opted for a small shot of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, which almost instantly revived her. Within ten minutes, she was on her way out the door. He clasps his hands studded with rings as he thinks what might have happened if she overdosed outside instead of under OnPoint NYC’s supervision. “How could anyone object to saving lives?” he asks.
