The idea to build the centers, where addicts will be able to take drugs in a "calm and safe atmosphere," has been voiced by the city's mayor Sergio Chiamparino, and later upheld by the city's municipal council.
Advocates of safe injection rooms, also called "tolerance rooms" or "T-rooms," say they can help reduce overdoses, as well as injection-related diseases and damage, including vein damage and the transmission of disease, as drugs are taken under medical control and in hygienic conditions.
Some experts say they can also contribute to reducing public order problems, such as improper syringe disposal and public use of drugs. The idea was supported by the country's health minister, Livia Turco, and Minister of Social Solidarity Paolo Ferrero.
"The main task is not to leave those, who take drugs, on their own," Turko said.
The idea has been criticized by right-wing parties, which claim they "assist suicide." The country's psychiatrists are also critical of the idea, stating that t-room use in other countries demonstrates that they only slightly reduce the number of overdose-related deaths.
"Those who use heroin never have enough of it," the newspaper quotes an Italian psychiatrist as saying.
