Pubdate: Mon, 07 Mar 2016
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2016 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Katharine Q. Seelye
Note: Seelye writes for The New York Times.

HEROIN USE AND OVERDOSES SEEPING INTO PUBLIC VIEW

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - In Philadelphia last spring, a man riding a city 
bus at rush hour injected heroin into his hand, in full view of other 
passengers, including one who captured the scene on video.

In Cincinnati, a woman died in January after she and her husband 
overdosed in their baby's room at Cincinnati Children's Hospital 
Medical Center. The husband was found unconscious with a gun in his 
pocket, a syringe in his arm and needles strewn around the sink.

In Cambridge, Mass., a few years ago, after several people overdosed 
in the bathrooms of a historic church, church officials reluctantly 
closed the bathrooms to the public.

"We weren't medically equipped or educated to handle overdoses, and 
we were desperately afraid we were going to have something happen 
that was way out of our reach," said the Rev. Joseph Robinson, rector 
of the church, Christ Church Cambridge.

With heroin cheap and widely available on city streets throughout the 
country, users are making their buys and shooting up as soon as they 
can, often in public places.

Police officers are routinely finding drug users - unconscious or 
dead - in cars, in the bathrooms of fast-food restaurants, on mass 
transit and in parks, hospitals and libraries.

The visibility of drug users may be partly attributed to the nature 
of the epidemic, which has grown largely out of dependence on legal 
opioid painkillers and has spread to white, urban, suburban and rural areas.

Nationally, 125 people a day die from overdosing on heroin and 
painkillers, and many more are revived, brought back from the brink 
of death - often in full public view. The police in Upper Darby, Pa., 
have even posted a video of another man shooting heroin on a public 
bus, and then being revived by Narcan, which reverses the effects of 
a heroin overdose, to demonstrate the drug's effectiveness.

Some addicts even seek out towns where emergency medical workers 
carry Narcan and then shoot up in public places - "knowing if they do 
overdose, there's a good likelihood that when police respond, they'll 
be able to administer Narcan," said Special Agent Timothy Desmond, a 
spokesman for the New England region of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In Linthicum, Md., Brian Knighton, a wrestler known as Axl Rotten in 
Extreme Championship Wrestling, died last month after overdosing in a 
McDonald's bathroom.

In Cincinnati in 2014, an Indiana couple overdosed on heroin at a 
McDonald's, collapsing in front of their children in the restaurant's 
play area.

In Niagara Falls, N.Y., a man was accused in October of leaving a 
5-year-old boy unattended in a Dairy Queen while he went to the 
bathroom; he was later found on the floor with a syringe in his arm.

In Johnstown, Pa., a man overdosed on heroin on Feb. 19 in a bathroom 
at the Cambria County Library.

"Users need the fix as quickly as they can get it," said Edward James 
Walsh, chief of police in Taunton, Mass., a city 40 miles south of 
Cambridge that has been plagued with heroin overdoses in recent 
years. "The physical and psychological need is so great for an addict 
that they will use it at the earliest opportunity."

That reality has taxed law enforcement and city services across the 
country, and has stretched the tolerance of businesses that allow 
unfettered access to their bathrooms. Legal liability is an increasing worry.

"Overdosing has become an issue of great societal concern," said 
Martin Healy, chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Bar 
Association. "I'm not aware of any seminal cases so far, but this is 
likely to be a developing area of the law."

After shooting up in public places, people often leave behind dirty 
needles, posing a health hazard. In response, some groups have called 
for supervised injection facilities, like those in Canada and Europe, 
where people can inject themselves under medical supervision. The 
goal is to keep them from overdosing and to curb infectious diseases. 
Such facilities are illegal in this country, although the mayor of 
Ithaca, N.Y., recently suggested opening one.

In Boston, where pedestrians step over drug users who are nodding off 
on a stretch of Massachusetts Avenue known as Methadone Mile, a 
homeless organization has planned what it calls a safe space, where 
users could ride out their high under supervision; it would not allow 
actual injection on site.
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