syringe

Mayor Wu’s campaign has been made to answer time and time again for the current state of affairs of Mass and Cass from competition and detractors alike. The Kraft campaign has poured money into online social media influencers such as Secret Boston and Boston Culture, whose comment pages now attract vitriol and detracting comments en masse directed toward Wu. Other online tabloids make it a point to post a new article highlighting every incident associated with the area, fanning the flames of social media debate. More recently and specifically, the Boston Herald criticized the needle distribution program.

I wanted to dig in and write my own assessment of how the situation is being handled, outside of inflammatory ragebait and election-related misinformation.

Counterintuitive–but effective

Wu’s programs at Mass and Cass often look counterintuitive to outsiders: providing sterile syringes, transitional housing, and treatment access instead of heavy policing. Critics see this as enabling addiction, but the evidence points in the other direction; needle distribution programs, for example, significantly reduce HIV and hepatitis transmission and actually increase the likelihood of people entering treatment. Transitional housing helps stabilize people who would otherwise cycle between the streets, ER visits, and jail.

The illusion of punitive efficacy

By contrast, punitive approaches (arrests, crackdowns, forced displacement) tend to push use underground, increase rushed/riskier injections, and deter service contact. Evidence links criminalization to worse health outcomes among people who inject drugs and higher HIV risk behaviors. Locally, Boston’s public-health strategy coincides with meaningful progress: opioid overdose deaths fell about 38% in 2024 vs. 2023, the lowest since 2015.

The logic is simple: treating addiction as a public health issue saves lives and builds pathways to recovery. It doesn’t make for as good of a spectacle, but it gets the job done.

Outcomes over symbolism

If you have a better evidence-backed policy to counter Wu’s approach, that’s one thing; if you’re upset that nobody is toppling tents and arresting crowds of folks at Mass and Cass to get them out of sight, that’s another entirely, and not one the evidence supports.