Retailers install blue lights in bathrooms to stop drug use

As the nation struggles with the heartbreaking effects of its massive opioid epidemic, many companies are trying out innovative ideas to help solve the problem.

A handful of convenience stores and supermarkets are experiencing an unusual strategy: install blue lights in the bathrooms to quell the drug use by making it more difficult for injection by people. The theory is that drug users, who often use the privacy of toilet booths to procure heroin and other drugs, would have trouble finding their veins.

Turkey Hill Minit Markets, a chain of 260 stores in Pennsylvania, is one of two chains of convenience stores that have collaborated with the Loss Prevention Research Council of the University of Florida to test the effectiveness of blisters in the field.

"The hardest opiate user always wants to be specific – they want to make sure that the needle goes to the right place," said Read Hayes, director of the loss prevention group. , at ABC News.

Although the study is still in its infancy, Hayes reported that the first reactions of stores with blue lights were positive, reports of robberies and violent crime seemingly down.

But some warn that lights can do more harm than good.

A 2013 study by the Harm Reduction Journal warned that the benefits of blue lights were at best minimal and harmful to the worst as they increased the risk of an injection-related injury significantly.

"Although there was general agreement that the blue lights made the injection more difficult, a small number of participants were not at all discouraged," according to L & # 39; study. "Half would use a bathroom lit by blue lights if they needed a place to inject urgently."

Despite the risks, Turkey Hill remains confident that blue lights have the potential to deter the use of drugs in their stores.

Speaking with the Associated Press, Matt Dorgan, the director of channel protection, insisted that the lights were effective in the stores where they had been installed.

"It's a pretty dramatic reduction," he said. "We did not have a single overdose."