San Francisco needs a supervised injection clinic

February 15, 2011

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San Francisco Chronicle February 15, 2011 04:00 AM Copyright San

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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San Francisco is in the midst of a hepatitis C epidemic. More than 12,000 people

here live with hepatitis C, many of whom do not know they have it. The city has

the highest rate of liver cancer in the country because of hepatitis infections.

Treatment for hepatitis C is difficult, expensive and not always successful.

People continue to become infected with hepatitis C in San Francisco, primarily

through injecting drugs but increasingly through sexual contact as well.

For the past year and a half, I have been a member of the San Francisco Mayor's

Hepatitis C Task Force, along with 30 other dedicated participants, including

doctors, researchers, advocates and people living with hepatitis C. We spent

more than a year gathering information, listening to research presentations and

personal testimony, reviewing state and national hepatitis plans, and

deliberating on what we could recommend to ensure that San Francisco does a

better job of addressing hepatitis C and preventing new infections.

One of our recommendations has attracted attention, including an article in The

Chronicle. As a part of our direction that San Francisco must provide effective

hepatitis C interventions, we recommended the creation of a legal, supervised

injection facility.

Supervised injection facilities are places where people can safely use illicit

drugs such as heroin with sterile equipment and medical staff on hand.

Supervised injection facilities are operating in 27 cities around the world,

including in Vancouver, British Columbia; Sydney; and Oslo. The evidence is

conclusive that they reduce HIV and hepatitis transmission risks, prevent

overdose deaths, reduce public injections, reduce discarded syringes and

increase the number of people who enter drug treatment. Few people would

disagree with any of those outcomes.

The mayor and other San Francisco politicians who are committed to reducing the

harms that drugs create for our communities would be well served by paying

attention to the evidence and lessons from Vancouver. San Francisco has led the

way in fighting HIV. The city needs to take these recommendations seriously and

begin to address hepatitis C with the same courage and leadership it has shown

for HIV. Politics can't trump science.

Even here, we have some officials who remain invested in addressing drugs as a

criminal justice issue rather than a public health issue. They continue to

support the status quo, where people cycle through our jails and emergency rooms

at great cost. We will continue to waste resources putting sick people in jail

until our elected officials and policymakers are willing to step up and redirect

resources to more effective approaches that will save money over time, such as a

supervised injection facility. There are too many lives on the line, and there

will be a price for a slow learning curve.

San Franciscans face a choice: Do we continue to waste money and allow people to

become sick and die, or do we follow the clear evidence and invest in something

that works?

directs the San Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance (

www.drugpolicy.org).

This article appeared on page A - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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February 15, 2011