Treatment of injecting drug users are often complicated by social and political barriers to treatment and, in developing countries, by a lack of resources for public health approaches to treatment (Baciewicz 2005). In the early 1990's, Germany's first safe injection facilities were deemed legal, and by 2000, the federal government had amended its narcotics laws to sanction them formally, thus users today still have to buy their drugs on the street, however they have clean, supervised facilities in which to use them (Lorinc 2005). The site have contributed to a decrease in overdose deaths in cities like Frankfurt and Hamburg (Lorinc 2005). Europe has 8,000 drug-related fatalities per year, and the number continues to rise, yet only one overdose has occurred in a safe injection site as of 2003 (Lorinc 2005). Supporters argue that these facilities have a positive impact on communities that were once overrun with intravenous drug users and dealers, and many European cities claim that there is now less drug use in parks, and fewer discarded syringes (Lorinc 2005). The conclusion seems to be that the "longer the exposure to consumption rooms, the greater the reduction in high-risk behavior" (Lorinc 2005). .

             Heroin has long been regarded as the dirty drug, the poison that only hardened junkies use, however experts say there has been a turnaround in this seedy image, and now the drug is becoming increasingly glamorous and is attracting a new breed of users (Frame 1996). More and more people are being to use heroin recreationally, and "clubbers" are now using heroin to bring them down from drugs like Ecstasy (Frame 1996). For example, Britain's heroin addicts have risen from 5,000 in the mid-1980's to more than 9,000 by 1996, and according to one survey, more than 75 percent of addicts are females (Frame 1996). Most heroin users began by taking Ecstasy, speed, cocaine, tempazapam, and finally graduated to heroin (Frame 1996).