TheNew York Post recently published yet another dehumanizing “article” calling for the shutdown of OnPoint NYC, the overdose prevention center (OPC) where I work. The piece, filled with misinformation and moral grandstanding, is a stark reminder of how little the Post and politicians like Nicole Malliotakis — a New York City Council representative who is on a mission to help close them down — understand about harm reduction, public health, or the lives of the people they so casually dismiss. As someone who has witnessed the transformative impact of OPCs firsthand, I can say with certainty: their calls to shut down these lifesaving centers are not just misguided, they are deadly.
The Post article selectively cites data to paint a distorted picture of OPCs, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that these sites save lives. They claim how “dangerous” they are, suggesting they increase crime, yet conveniently omit a recent study published in JAMA that found no increase in crime or disorder following the opening of OPCs. As can be expected from a publication like the Post, the piece is propaganda designed to vilify some of the most marginalized members of our society.
The truth is that OPCs are a proven, evidence-based intervention. They, along with other harm reduction based interventions, have been shown to reduce overdose deaths, prevent the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, and connect people to medical care and substance use treatment. At OnPoint NYC, I have seen how these centers provide a lifeline to individuals who are often abandoned by the rest of society and by the medical system itself. We treat people with dignity and respect, offering medical care, harm reduction supplies, and a safe space to use drugs under supervision. This is not just about preventing overdoses, it’s about affirming the inherent worth of every person, regardless of where they are in life.
At OnPoint NYC, many of us are not just staff, we are current or former participants of the program, or we have loved ones and friends who rely on its services. Our former participants and staff have gone on to provide life saving services around the country and around the world. This work is deeply personal to us, which is why it’s so disheartening to see publications like the Post and right-wing politicians use dehumanizing language to attack our lifesaving program.
The Post quotes one individual who claims that OPCs should focus on helping people “get off heroin.” While medication for opioid use disorder and other treatments are available at our sites — and I have seen many people begin their recovery journeys at them — this is not the sole purpose of harm reduction. Harm reduction means meeting people where they are, without judgment or coercion. It means extending love and compassion to someone simply because they are human, not because they meet society’s narrow definition of “deserving” based on decisions around using or not using substances. This radical idea, that every person is worthy of care and kindness, no matter their circumstances, is at the heart of what we do. It’s why people come to us and it’s why they trust us.
The Post and its political allies would have you believe that OPCs are a threat to public safety, but the real threat is the system they defend, capitalism. The deepening crisis of addiction and overdose is not an accident, it is the result of a society that prioritizes profit over people, that leaves millions to suffer in poverty, homelessness, and despair. People use drugs for many reasons, but often those reasons touch on a need to cope with the pain and alienation created by this system. Yet the NYP has nothing to say about the root causes of this suffering. Instead, it scapegoats drug users and the services that keep them alive.
What the Post proposes, shutting down OPCs, is the exact opposite of what we need. The overdose crisis in the United States continues to worsen, with tens of thousands of lives lost each year. We need more OPCs — there are currently only three in the U.S. — not fewer. Both Biden and Trump have been largely silent about overdose prevention centers even though they have both signaled they want to address the overdose crisis. We need more harm reduction services, more access to healthcare, and more resources to address the social determinants of health. The United States remains woefully behind much of the world in terms of drug policy, clinging to failed policies of criminalization and punishment.
Really, the Post should just be open and say the quiet part out loud: they hate poor people and drug users because they expose the brutal realities of the system they uphold. They would rather criminalize homelessness and addiction than confront the inequality and exploitation that fuel these crises. But no amount of policing or moralizing will make these problems disappear. If we truly want to address drug use and overdoses, love must be at the center of our approach, not the punitive, dehumanizing logic of the failed War on Drugs.
History shows us that the policies needed to truly address the overdose crisis in the U.S. will never come from Democratic or Republican politicians. Both parties are complicit in upholding the capitalist system that perpetuates this crisis. Democrat Governor Hochul’s inaction is a glaring example. Hochul’s refusal to declare a public health emergency around overdose deaths, her failure to allocate opioid settlement funds to expand overdose prevention centers (OPCs), and her reluctance to push forward the Safer Consumption Services Act are all decisions that have and will continue to cost lives. In the NYC borough of the Bronx, where overdose rates are the highest in the city, the continued absence of an OPC is nothing short of criminal. This is all happening, loved community members are dying, within a Democratic city, in a Democratic state.
Hochul’s inaction alongside the failures of other Democratic politicians, end up extending beyond the direct effects. This inaction creates a vacuum that the Right eagerly fills, using fear mongering to attack harm reduction efforts as we see in the Post’s piece and Malliotakis’s attacks. Both Democrats and Republicans have always worked hand in hand to sustain a system that criminalizes the poor, disproportionately targets Black and Brown communities through the failed drug war, and funnels billions into the prison industrial complex. Their shared commitment to drug criminalization under capitalism ensures that the status quo remains intact, no matter the human cost.
Even the fact that lifesaving services like OPCs are forced to operate as nonprofits raises deeper questions about the capitalist state and its priorities. Why have politicians from both parties helped set up a dynamic where these essential services must be provided through the nonprofit industrial complex, reliant on grants, donations, and the whims of private funders, rather than being fully funded by the city and state? By forcing OPCs to operate as nonprofits, the state absolves itself of responsibility while maintaining control over the resources and policies that could truly address the overdose crisis. This arrangement benefits the capitalist system in various ways: it perpetuates the criminalization of drug use, which fuels the prison industrial complex; and it directs public ire toward individuals struggling with substance use, rather than the systemic inequality and exploitation that drive addiction. Additionally, and very importantly for the ruling class, this setup makes sure to keep organizations attempting to address the issue dependent on public funds, which means organizations constantly need to be tempering our demands so as to not offend capitalist politicians or funders. Such a dynamic also provides an avenue for the same people that cause poverty, inequality, and addiction to improve their public image by donating to organizations that are “doing good work.” What we need to end the crisis of overdoses — universal healthcare and safe consumption sites freely accessible under worker and community control, free housing, and an end to the drug war — will never come from capitalists or capitalist politicians, because the status quo serves their interests. A struggle for true “harm reduction” would need to be, at its core, a struggle against capitalism itself.
At OnPoint NYC, love is not just a sentiment for me and my coworkers; it is a practice. It is the foundation of our work, and it is what sets us apart from the cold indifference of the New York Post and its allies. But love must also guide our fight against the system that creates these crises in the first place. The struggle for true harm reduction is inseparable from the struggle against capitalism. It is a fight for a world where every person has the care, dignity, and support they need to thrive, where those now oppressed and the whole working class control and manage all aspects of society, and a world where no one is sacrificed at the altar of profit.