Drugs : the injection room in paris proven

Henri Garat/SIPA

Published the 13.10.2017 at 11h54

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droguesalle of consumption at a lower risqueaddiction

The device keeps its objectives. In Paris, the room of drug consumption to lower risk, provided access to the users who are most marginalized, to screen for infections and perhaps prevent fatal overdoses. According to an assessment presented by the municipality of Paris, 800 people are registered to the room installed since October of 2016 next to the gare du Nord.

In one year, 53 582 consumption have been counted, or 165 per day. Most of these drinks are injections, precise the town hall, containing the data of the association Gaia, which manages the hall. The substance most commonly used is the Skenan, a painkiller morphine, which is far ahead of heroin (1 %). These products are not provided by the venue, it is the consumers themselves who buy them.

No overdose fatal

The room supervised injection has allowed the screening of 123 infectious diseases (HIV, hepatitis), can we still read. According to the ministry of Health, more than 10 % of the users of drugs by injection or inhalation in France were infected with the aids virus in 2011, and more than 40 % by hepatitis C.

Moreover, 827 consultations health have been carried out by doctors or nurses of Gaia and 324 users have been received for interviews social, focusing particularly on administrative matters, accommodation, or problems with the law. Outside the room, the team of the Gaia led 200 maraudes of social mediation since the opening.

Consumption is always under the supervision of a nursing, no overdose fatal has not occurred. A passage every three weeks on average, however, need an intervention of the team of the resuscitation or the emergency department of the hospital Lariboisière, in which the room is leaning.

Seven meetings of residents

From a health point of view and social, in the consumption room at a lower risk therefore shows a positive balance. Where the data are less clear-cut, it is on the feeling of safety in the neighbourhood. In fact, in Paris, the local residents have actively campaigned against the opening of the room, which had a vocation to appease the public space (less open stages of drug use, fewer syringes lying around, and squats in the stairwells, etc.).

The neighbourhood committee, put in place to respond in particular to concerns of residents, met seven times, says the town hall. The concerns of the local residents do not seem to have been completely reversed.

The first SCMR opened in 1986 in Switzerland. Today there are 95 rooms in the world, in ten countries. In France, Strasbourg has followed Paris with the opening of a second room for users of French and German, the November 7, 2016.