Supervised injection sites have been proposed in cities including San Francisco, Denver and Seattle, but none have opened so far. Some observers have recently speculated that Rhode Island would be the first state to break ground. By beating others to the punch, New York’s pilot sites will lead the way into the murky legal waters.
Since announcing the pilot in 2018, the de Blasio administration has been working with the NYPD and district attorneys to ensure the sites can operate without the interference of municipal law enforcement. Reached for comment in early November, spokespeople for the Manhattan and Brooklyn DA’s confirmed their support for overdose prevention centers.
WNYC/Gothamist did not get a response from Bronx DA Darcel Clark, who has previously spoken out against the facilities. “Government should not be involved in taking on that type of liability,” Clark said in 2019.
Asked about the pilot, a police department spokesperson said, “The NYPD is aware of the program and has no plans to target people connected to authorized sites that are meant to reduce overdoses of dangerous drugs. Our enforcement efforts remain targeted to those who illegally sell and distribute the illegal drugs that have led to record numbers of overdose deaths in our streets.”
The legal standing of the centers could be bolstered by support from the state, and de Blasio said last month he was optimistic that he could get that support under Hochul after being stone-walled by Cuomo. Dr. Mary Bassett, the incoming state health commissioner whose appointment begins December 1st, was the top doctor for New York City under de Blasio when the pilot was first announced three years ago.
“You want to try and keep people alive, get them into treatment, and not punish them, which pushes people away,” Bassett told the news outlet The City in March.
But even with state and municipal clearance, the centers could still be challenged by a federal prosecutor.
Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania sued the nonprofit Safehouse for seeking to open a supervised injection site in Philadelphia. Lawyers for the Trump administration said it violated the “crack house statute.”
President Joe Biden was an architect of that law as a senator in the 1980s, but he and his Department of Justice have not clarified their stance on whether it should be enforced against supervised injection sites.
A U.S. district court initially ruled in favor of Safehouse, but an appeals court overturned the decision earlier this year. The U.S. Supreme Court then declined to hear the case. The nonprofit is still pursuing additional arguments at the federal level, and the Biden administration has until January to respond to those claims. That means the federal government cannot avoid the issue for much longer.
De Blasio has acknowledged the possibility of a federal crackdown. In April, he and other mayors sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to issue a statement on behalf of the Department of Justice saying the enforcement of federal law against supervised injection facilities would not be a priority.
Although he never received that assurance, de Blasio said last month he was optimistic the centers would be allowed to stay open.
“We have a new administration in Washington, a new administration in Albany,” de Blasio said in a press conference on October 26th. “It was the right time to do something on this topic while we could finally have the kind of potential cooperation we need.”
Credit: Source link
The post After Years Of Delay, NYC Opens First Supervised Injection Sites In US To Fight Opioid Overdoses appeared first on News Full Circle.
Post a Comment