FOR A HISTORY of recent drugs policy in America, look to a decommissioned church in Philadelphia. Still home to a forlorn-looking organ, it is now Prevention Point, a non-profit trying to help addicts. Since 1991 the group has provided clean needles to intravenous drug users, reckoning an addiction is less dangerous than HIV. It moved into the old church a decade ago, as fentanyl began to arrive in Philadelphia. There was “an explosion of people coming in” for syringes, says Silvana Mazzella, who runs the organisation. Yet Prevention Point is now handing out fewer needles. City government used to provide $900,000 for clean needles, but Cherelle Parker, the mayor, has pledged to “fight tooth and nail to make sure that not one city dollar” is spent on the programme.