New York City to Install Vending Machines with Clean Syringes, Overdose Treatments for Drug Users

In efforts to curb spiking drug overdoses, New York City will install public health vending machines full of sterile syringes and naloxone, which can be administered during an overdose.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported that in 2020, over 2,000 people in the city died from unintentional drug overdoses, per Just the News.

The report found that poor black and Latino communities experienced the highest number of overdoses.

The Fund for Public Health in New York, the organization that proposed the vending machines, wrote about the necessity for them in efforts to combat racial inequity.

“Racial equity does not mean simply treating everyone equally, but rather, allocating resources and services in such a way that explicitly addresses barriers imposed by structural racism (i.e. policies and institutional practices that perpetuate racial inequity) and White privilege,” the proposal reads.

The organization suggests installing the machines in locations including the Fordham-Bronx Park, East Harlem and Union Square.

The project will cost taxpayers approximately $730,000.

As previously reported by Human Events News, in November, New York City became the first city in the United States to open supervised drug consumption sites.

The “Overdose Prevention Centers” are “safe places where people who use drugs can receive medical care and be connected to treatment and social services,” according to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office.

The sites will be co-located with “previously established syringe service providers,” which distributed at least 4.5 million clean needles to drug users across the five boroughs in 2018.

The first two sites with trained staff opened in November in East Harlem and Washington Heights, Manhattan.