The nation’s first supervised injection sites opened in New York City at the end of last year, in a major victory for harm-reduction advocates who have been fighting for years for such facilities where addicts can inject drugs in a safe setting and overseen by medical personnel. Looking at the impact of the sites so far, the Washington Postreports that they have been used more than 3,000 times and workers have reversed 76 overdoses—a small victory, experts note, as the country’s overdose fatality rate has climbed to nearly 300 a day and one every four hours in New York. Saving lives is, of course, critical, but the article also points out that engaging patients in treatment will only be “encouraged” if a user first expresses interest in treatment first, which is unlikely to happen. Harm reduction can play a critical role in drug policy, but it must be accompanied by incentives to enter treatment and a substantial expansion of treatment options.
Meanwhile, as more states legalize marijuana more children are inadvertently eating increasingly popular cannabis-infused foods and getting sick—sometimes critically. In Colorado, for example, an early legal state, unintentional marijuana exposures have continued to climb, and in Washington State, the number of exposures among children under 6 nearly tripled in the five years since pot stores opened. Nationally, exposures to children 12 and under grew from 187 in 2016 to 3,100 in 2020, with a majority of them children under 5 years old. Doctors say that many adults and teenagers alike generally assume that edibles are harmless, but they contain THC—the psychoactive component of pot—and can lead to cannabis use disorder and side effects including psychosis. But it’s easy to understand why kids want to consume them, as many products are packaged as mouthwatering chocolates, soft and chewy cookies, and fruity gummies.
And finally, Colorado is at least changing its marijuana statutes to curb underage consumption: a new law will close a notorious loophole that allowed young people with valid medical marijuana cards to buy as much pot as they wanted—a practice called “looping.” Under the new regulation, there will be a tracking system that monitors sales in real-time, and limits purchases to one per day for card-holders between the age of 18 and 21. It’s the kind of sensible regulation that should become a model for other legal states where underage consumption of marijuana is widespread.