Nearly two years after Rhode Island became the first in the nation to legalize safe places where people can consume illicit drugs, the state’s first safe consumption center is expected to open in a commercial neighborhood in Providence in early 2024.
Project Weber/RENEW, a peer-led harm reduction and recovery support group, in partnership with CODAC Behavioral Healthcare, announced plans Tuesday to open the safe consumption, or overdose prevention center, at 349 Huntington Ave., Providence. , The site would be in the building where CODAC, the state’s largest nonprofit provider of opioid treatment services, currently operates a clinic. (CODAC plans to move to a new, larger facility at 45 Royal Little Dr., Providence.)
Rhode Island has allocated $2.6 million from the state’s opioid settlement funds to pay for the center’s first year of operation.
The center would allow people to use pre-obtained illicit substances under the supervision of trained professionals. The clients also will be able to test their drugs for fentanyl and other substances and be supervised by people who can administer naloxone, known as Narcan, in case of an overdose, according to a statement from Project Weber-RENEW.
Rhode Island became the first state to legalize supervised drug consumption sites in 2020, but finding an affordable location delayed its launch. A private substance abuse and mental health treatment program in Providence known as VICTA was also hoping to open a safe consumption center. But when the state issued its requests for proposals, the settlement funds allocated were not enough to open two sites, so VICTA “took a step back,” said Lisa Peterson, the group’s chief operating officer. “It didn’t make sense to compete’’ for funding, she said. VICTA “just wanted to do one, and get it done right.”
State lawmakers recently approved legislation to extend the deadline for the pilot program for another two years, to March 1, 2026.
Rhode Island has allocated $2.6 million from the state’s opioid settlement funds to pay for the first year of the center’s operations.
The plan still needs to go before the Providence City Council, which could happen as early as June, Mikel Wadewitz, a spokesman for Project Webber/Renew, said in an email Tuesday.
The center must also be approved by the state Department of Health, which has not yet received a copy of the plan, Joseph Wendelken, a department spokesman, said in an email.
“This is a historic and humane step forward in the fight against the epidemic of overdose deaths,” Project Weber/RENEW Executive Director Colleen Daley Ndoye said in a statement. “We have many years of experience as a peer-led organization, and we’re ready to make Rhode Island a leader in a new era of harm reduction.”
Brown University’s School of Public Health will evaluate the center’s programs and outcomes. The center will be led by Ashley Perry, deputy director of Project Weber/RENEW, and Dennis Bailer, the organization’s overdose prevention program director.
“People die when they use alone, and they don’t have to be alone,’’ Bailer said in a statement.
Providence has the second-highest rate of overdose deaths in Rhode Island, after the City of Woonsocket, according to state health data.
The nonprofits said they have begun reaching out to residents and stakeholders in the community about the project.
At least 100 supervised consumption sites, also known as safe injection sites, operate around the world, mainly in Canada, Europe and Australia. In late 2021, New York City opened the nation’s first supervised injection site. Similar sites have been proposed in cities including San Francisco, Denver, Seattle and Philadelphia and nearby Somerville, Massachusetts.
If approved, the Rhode Island center could be the country’s first state-regulated consumption center.
Health reporter Lynn Arditi can be reached at larditi@thepublicsradio.org Follow her on Twitter @LynnArditi
