https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/addicts-should-be-able-to-shoot-up-legally-in-safe-injection-facilities/ > Annual opioid fatalities have now surpassed the yearly number of deaths from AIDS at the height of that epidemic in the mid-1990s. In 2016 drug overdose deaths numbered 63,000, more than the U.S. death toll from the entire Vietnam War. The trend is terrifying: the problem is getting worse each year. > Cities and states reeling from opioid deaths need to give serious consideration to setting up safe injection rooms, which could significantly reduce fatalities. These are places where a drug user can go to consume illegal drugs under the supervision of health workers. They have been used in Europe, Canada and Australia for decades, and evidence and experience have shown that they are very effective. This may not seem like an obvious way to fight an abuse epidemic, but few other options exist. In the U.S., many cities' efforts to establish such sites have stalled, but now multiple cities have plans to open the country's first officially sanctioned injection sites. Philadelphia expects to do so in 2019. San Francisco, too, hopes to overcome legal and siting obstacles and open its first facilities this year. New York City's mayor has also endorsed setting up multiple sites at current needle-exchange programs.