An academic study published today in the International Journal of Drug Policy noted a statistic one needn’t be a doctor nor a mathematician to grasp: 333 An academic study found the Tenderloin Center saved lives at its supervised drug consumption site — but also got in its own way with unworkable policies.
Suen and her co-authors from the University of California, San Diego, and RTI International in Berkeley diplomatically note that this led to “strained relationships with city emergency response systems.” Mission Local is informed by others that this strain could be of the high-decibel variety.
The outcomes, Suen and her nine co-authors find, were good. Overdoses requiring naloxone — and a mandatory 911 call, an ambulance dispatch and “tensions on-site” — reduced markedly, from 98 percent of all ODs to just 66 percent. What’s more, while naloxone can be traumatizing and unpleasant and induce withdrawal symptoms, oxygen does not. declaration of emergency
“It does drain on resources and can create tensions on site and with emergency-response systems if services are repeatedly declined,” she said. The 911 policy was described by the Department of Emergency Management as ensuring “additional life safety measures were in place to protect against the lethality of a fentanyl overdose. … Please keep in mind that when the Tenderloin Center was established, San Francisco was testing new approaches to address the overdose epidemic.
With oxygen, a lot of the stress and indecision around whether to intervene or not is eliminated. “The threshold can be lower.”