The July 21 edition of the Redmond Reporter offered a progressive-liberal guest editorial.

Gina Frank champions the creation of “safe injection facilities” as “a lifesaving approach.”

This is akin to advocating for “safe spaces” for tobacco use in restaurants and airports. Why should smokers be forced out into cold, rainy weather or relegated to the shadows of the pet waste area at Sea-Tac, just to engage in their drug habit? Wouldn’t it be a life-saving measure to create safe spaces for them to smoke? “Of course not,” you say. “Smokers deserve no sympathy. They deserve to be shunned and shamed.”

Guess what: heroin users should be, too. They should not be coddled or catered to. Providing a “safe space” (scare quotes because heroin and other opioids are not safe, no matter where you use them) will neither reduce usage nor safe lives. Recent data from Vancouver, British Columbia reveals that drug overdose deaths have increased dramatically in the years since they “pioneered” the concept of safe injection sites. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Roger Clarke-Johnson,

Kirkland