Everyday 78 people in America die of an opioid overdose. Most often they are young heroin users. In fact, just this October President Donald Trump declared opioid abuse a public health emergency.

Over the last ten years, overdose deaths in Colorado per year rose from 37 to 228. Death from overdose is becoming an epidemic. The embarrassment, shaming, and legal ramifications are not effective.

In Canada and other countries around the world, over 100 programs have been established to provide addicts a safe place to inject, and now Denver is considering doing the same.

What exactly do these clinics look like? The clinics are set up with semi private booths, chairs, mirrors, and clean needles. Trained staff is present to assist incase of emergencies such as overdose as well as providing sanitary environments.

Such clinics are set up similar to dialysis clinics for people with kidney failure, or cancer infusion centers. These clinics would come with multiple advantages for drug users in Colorado, besides the obvious drop in opioid related deaths. Because of the supplied sterile needles, HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, and other diseases would be less of a risk.

There would also be less shame and embarrassment involved, and because of the danger in an addict rushing through cooking and injecting, the process would be safer.

Addicts would not be the only ones being positively affected by this program. Every morning an estimated 3,500 dirty needles are found on Denver’s Colfax Avenue posing a threat to everyone in the community. Besides this, there’s the possibility of walking into a public bathroom or past an alley and discovering someone dead from an over dose.

These clinics would  not be legalizing or encouraging drug use, they would be preventing crime and disease, and most importantly the loss of so many  loved ones. Its time to stop seeing addicts as worthless criminals and time to see them as humans who deserve to live.