SEATTLE _ Washington's King County is moving closer to opening two public sites where drug users can inject heroin under supervision.
The county's Board of Health voted 12-0 Thursday to endorse the sites, which would be the first of their kind in the nation.
A task force, made up of experts on heroin and opioid abuse, recommended the supervised injection sites in September as a way to reduce the wave of overdose deaths that has wracked Seattle and King County in recent years.
Thursday's vote is an endorsement of the task force's recommendations _ which go beyond the injection sites _ but it does not represent a final decision.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine are expected to weigh in with a decision on the sites in the next several weeks.
Both have supported the sites in the past.
Murray said he'd support them if it can be done "in a way that reduces the negative impacts" on neighborhoods, and Constantine said he'd be supportive "regardless of the political discomfort" if the sites saved lives.
No specific locations have been publicly identified.
Although no such sites exist in the United States, Vancouver, Canada, has had one since 2003. Drug users come to get clean needles and inject in a safe, supervised environment. The sites have naloxone _ a drug that reverses the deadly effects of opioid overdoses _ on hand. It is used multiple times a day and is credited with preventing nearly 5,000 overdoses at the site in Vancouver.
Heroin overdoses killed 132 people in King County in 2015. The death toll is more than 200 when overdoses from prescription opioids _ which are, molecularly, virtually identical to heroin _ are included.
The task force recommended two injection sites in King County, one in Seattle and another outside the city. The sites would be a three-year pilot project.
Supporters say they will reduce overdose deaths and used needles littering sidewalks, offering an alternative to places like public restrooms, alleys and homeless encampments. They would be a place where users could be offered health care, long-term treatment and other social services.
But opponents say the sites amount to encouraging drug abuse. State Sen. Mark Miloscia, a Republican, introduced a bill this week to ban supervised injection sites.
In addition to the safe injection sites, the task force also called for expanding drug- treatment programs, increasing access to naloxone and increasing access to opioid-treatment drugs like Suboxone.
