There's no hiding from the statistics. In 2018, 1,116 people died from overdoses in Philadelphia, according to that city's Department of Health, amounting to about three deaths per day and one of the highest per-capita totals in the country. Sadly, Missouri and St. Louis aren't far behind.

A 2018 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the number of opioid overdoses in Missouri had increased by 18.9%, the second highest rate in the country. St. Louis and surrounding counties saw a similar increase, with 1,016 deaths, up from 831 in 2017, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. The problem is reflected in all kinds of ways on local streets, from the numbers of people rendered homeless by drug addiction to the fires and other security concerns in vacant houses posed by vagrant drug abusers.

The difference in Philadelphia, however, is that the city is trying become the first in the country to establish a supervised injection site. Safehouse, the nonprofit organization in charge of the effort, is currently fighting in court with U.S. Attorney William McSwain, a Trump appointee, over the site's legality. Safehouse doesn't supply its clients with drugs but instead is creating a safe place to use drugs in the presence of health care professionals who could step in immediately if an overdose takes place.

McSwain is doing his best to stop Safehouse's plan in court, arguing that visitors' "fundamental purpose is to use drugs."

The dispute pits an unyielding interpretation of the law against the compassionate recognition that overdose tragedies will continue unabated unless something is tried. McSwain's insistence on rigid enforcement ignores various precedents that show the federal government can exercise leniency when it chooses. A perfect example is the decision not to enforce federal laws in the face of states' growing legalization of marijuana — which the federal government lists as a Schedule I drug as dangerous as heroin.

The Safehouse program isn't about enabling drug abuse but saving lives by providing users with locations that offer direct access to sterile needles, instant health care and rehabilitation. Similar supervised-injection sites have proven successful in Switzerland, Australia and Canada.

As of July 2019, Insite, a Vancouver based supervised injection site, had overseen 3.6 million injections and 6,440 overdoses — but not a single death.

Philadelphia's project proposes to build on those successes, possibly with an eye toward expanding them to other cities like St. Louis. Even if the injection site ultimately is ruled illegal, other programs exist to attack the opioid crisis, such as those that distribute clean needles and syringes to users. Safehouse's program substitutes harsh penalties and social isolation with patience and compassion. If it can help addicts turn their lives around, why not give it a chance to show results?

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