New York City-Funded Guide Teaches How to Shoot Heroin Safely

NEW YORK – Do you want to learn a safer way to shoot heroin? New York City has a guide for that.

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spent $32,000 of tax money on 70,000 copies that offer information on how to prepare drugs carefully and care for veins to avoid infection.

"This is a tremendous misuse of city funds, and I'm going to see what I can do to stop it," Democratic New York City Council member Peter Vallone Jr. told the New York Post. "It's sick."

And, it's not just taxpayers who are angry.

The state's top official with the Drug Enforcement Administration calls the "Take Charge Take Care" guide a "step-by-step instruction on how to inject a poison."

DEA special agent-in-charge John Gilbride says the handout is disturbing.

"It concerns me that the city would produce a how-to on using drugs," Gilbride told the Post. "Heroin is extremely potent. You may only get the chance to use it once. To suggest there is a method of using that alleviates the dangers, that's very disturbing."

The 16-page booklet features seven comics-like illustrations and offers such advice as "Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins," and "Find the vein before you try to inject."

A health official says the goal is to promote health and save lives. Assistant Commissioner Daliah Heller says instructions on how to perform injections were included because there's "a less harmful way to inject."

The illustrated guidebook offers information on HIV testing and the dangers of sharing needles.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.