"It could be pure coincidence, but the fact that the addiction care center in the western German city of Essen, population 600,000, is located on Hoffnungsstrae ("Hope Street" ) could also be a sign. It represents hope for the people struggling with addiction, who can find somewhere they can get a free meal and a place to sleep. Hope Street is also the place where they can snort, smoke or inject heroin in sterile drug consumption rooms, under supervision."
"Since the drug consumption room opened in 2001, there hasn't been a single death there, Stolz reported with satisfaction. But the latest, even more dangerous drugs are already on the doorstep. In large German cities such as Frankfurt or Berlin, synthetic opioids like fentanyl or nitazenes, which are mixed with heroin, have long been on the streets. Even a small amount, the size of a grain of salt, can kill."
A harm-reduction center on Hope Street in Essen provides free meals, shelter and supervised drug consumption rooms offering sterile syringes, where no deaths have occurred since 2001. Patterns of use are shifting: long-term intravenous heroin users increasingly smoke crack, accelerating physical and social deterioration. Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and nitazenes have proliferated in major German cities, often mixed with heroin, and minute quantities can be fatal. Social platforms saw a rise in live-streamed benzodiazepine and opioid consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic, with dealers contacting users in comments and young people experiencing severe overdoses.
Read at www.dw.com
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