Professor of Medicine Department in the University of British
Columbia, Canada Research Chair in Inner City Medicine, Evan Wood
and his colleagues confirmed that the implementation of an SIS in
Vancouver was independently associated with 30% detoxification
treatment increase, which also benefited the long-term addiction
treatment (Wood, Tyndall, Zhang, Montaner, & Kerr, 2007). SIS’s are
building up trust with PWID gradually, which promotes the opportunity
for PWID to engage with healthcare service such as detox treatment,
disease screening, medical care, and other social supports, which largely
enhance the well-being of PWID.
Status and Public Support
Both SSPs and SIS’s are effective approaches to address drug-related
harm among PWID and communities. What status do these two
approaches have in the U.S, and how about public support? The
implementation of harm reduction facilities is controversial and
complex, especially for the SIS. In the United States, SSPs are legitimate
in 39 states (Policy Surveillance Program, 2019). For SSPs, the CDC
provides guidelines, and federal funds also support the implementation
of SSPs (CDC, 2020e). There is currently no SIS in any state in the U.S.
(Nursing@USC Staff, 2019). Nevertheless, some professional
organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA, 2017)
have already called for SIS’s to combat the urgent opioid crisis in the