Sam Rivera (L), executive director of OnPoint NYC talks to a worker at the newly formed nonprofit that operates a overdose prevention center in the Harlem borough of New York on February 8, 2022. – “This site saves lives,” reads an inscription on the wall of America’s first drug injection center in New York, which is aiming to serve as a model in a country blighted by record overdoses.
In the room, there are eight open cubicles all equipped with a chair, a table and a mirror, the latter to quickly see “if anything goes wrong,” says 29-year-old Mark, a regular visitor.
Drug overdoses killed 2,062 people in New York alone in 2020, the height of the city’s Covid-10 pandemic, with higher rates in poorer neighborhoods and Black communities.
Fewer than 1,500 died in 2019 and fewer than 1,000 in 2015.
Between April 2020 and April 2021, the United States recorded more than 100,000 drug deaths, a record for a 12-month period. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)