EL PASO — Men lined up outside the Corner of Hope, a homeless resource center, eyeing free supplies on plastic shelves inside a white van.
Some wanted bags with toiletries or condoms, but others took kits that help them safely use drugs or naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medicine.
Gilbert Shepherd, an outreach worker for Punto de Partida, a nonprofit that serves people who misuse drugs, gently questioned those who took the drug safety kits. A man wearing sunglasses and a black T-shirt explained that not long ago he took a pill he bought for $1.50 and, within minutes, he passed out for hours. A man in a plaid shirt and khaki pants described seeing someone overdose after taking a blue pill a month before.
