U.S. Prosecutors Sue To Stop Nation's First Supervised Injection Site For Opioids

[S.J.B.]

U.S. Prosecutors Sue To Stop Nation's First Supervised Injection Site For Opioids
Bobby Allyn
NPR
February 6th, 2019

After months of threats, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia launched a legal challenge on Wednesday against the nonprofit Safehouse, which is hoping to open what could be the nation's first site where people with opioid addiction can use drugs under medical supervision.

The civil lawsuit, which is jointly being pursued by Pennsylvania-based prosecutors and the Department of Justice in Washington, is the first time the federal government has intervened in the hotly debated issue of supervised injection sites. The lawsuit could become an important legal test case as about a dozen cities across the country consider similar proposals.

The suit comes just as Safehouse officials ramp up fundraising efforts and continue to scout a location for what they say is a medical facility that can save lives.

If federal officials succeed in court, the momentum behind Safehouse may be lost.

"This is in-your-face illegal activity using some of the most deadly, dangerous drugs that are on the streets. We have a responsibility to step in," says William McSwain, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "It's saying, 'Safehouse, we think this is illegal. Stop what you're doing.' "

Read the full story here.

 

[neversickanymore]

Wow.. Don't they have anything better to do? Stupid just hangs on way to hard.

 

[yepyepwoah]

How can anyone believe that they don't just want us all suffering and dead?

 

[cosmic charlie]

Honestly the majority of people in america are seriously ignorant when it comes to drug use. Society pretty much deems you a low life if your an addict. Sometimes it takes drastic measures like a safe injection site or needle exchanges to prevent wide scale spread of disease and unnecessary overdoses.

People just need to be treated like that, people.

"Why should we care if some junkies die."

I've heard cops say these thing'thins numerous times. Don't really know if their is a way to get through to some of those people. They have a deep rooted prejudice against people who use drugs.

~Charlie

 

[yepyepwoah]

Well I got swatted... can I say "Why should I care if some terrorist cop fucks die?" That's justifiable right? Anyone wanna volunteer to have about 10 cops put guns on your body and scream "don't move, get down on the ground, don't fucking move, we'll fucking kill you blahblahblah"

I forgive them though (and a myself for my own actions that led me to that point) and try and love them. It's called empathy. It's a pretty simple concept, but really fucking hard. The people who make these policies are either narcissist psychopaths, or "normal" people who live in bubble and have never had any suffering or pain that grants them empathy.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

"Supervised injection sites" (aka "shooting galleries") and, to a lesser extent, needle exchanges are victories for our side...they represent the HR perspective being put into practice, often with great success (I don't know of even a single fatal OD in the ones operating in France). It helps shift the perspective of drug use, from a criminal to a public health matter, and also allows outreach workers to access drug users who may want help.

Drug users are a marginalized/criminalized group of people, and thus outreach to them is difficult. Having a "shooting gallery", this place where this form of drug use is not only tolerated but facilitated, really says to the user that society, while it may frown on the behavior, cares about them (to some degree), doesn't automatically want to put them in a cage, and doesn't want them to die. I very much support it from an HR standpoint, although I can see why the authorities would be fiercely opposed to it.



The good news is that I think that HR-related ideas and concepts are becoming more influential in the realm of drug policy, as some recent experiments in Vancouver and this proposed one in Philadelphia (a city that BADLY needs this!) illustrates. I think that the younger generation who are just coming into power are more open-minded on the topic of criminal justice reform / drug policy reform, than previous generations perhaps were.

 

[S.J.B.]

...(I don't know of even a single fatal OD in the ones operating in France).

Insite, in Vancouver, has been running since 2003, and no one has ever died there:

More than 3.6 million clients have injected illicit drugs under supervision by nurses at Insite since 2003. There have been 48,798 clinical treatment visits and 6,440 overdose interventions without any deaths.

In fact, I've never heard of a drug poisoning death occurring at any supervised injection site in the world. If it has happened, it's exceedingly rare.

 

[cj]

We are winning. When I started following drug policy in 2005 the thought of a supervised injection site in the US was laughable. Now it's just a court fight from reality. The walls are falling. It's really something to behold

 

[ro4eva]

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

 

[Viraldrome]

I live near the injection site in calgary and would rather see addicts given regulated dosages of whatever the opiod of today is. With Fentanyl its not a once a day shot either, they are always in the neighborhood. Crime is almost all drug related around here. The victims of that crime will never support harm reduction again. I think we should skip this step altogether and put addicts on on scripts after they take a class on tolerance. William S Burroughs injected opiods into his 90s without a nurse watching him, the drugs aren't that dangerous, its the street unknown potency of street fentanyl killing everyone.

 

[S.J.B.]

I live near the injection site in calgary and would rather see addicts given regulated dosages of whatever the opiod of today is.

They have small programs that are starting to do this in Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton, with hydromorphone. Hopefully it gets ramped up and taken to more locations.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Have the Canadian or European programs been around enough to show a reduction in overdoses and addiction rates, crime etc?.

I understand nobody dies on site, but have these facilities all shown to put a dent on the overdose statistics in the area in which they are built?

I think the success of these pilot programs needs to really be shown, repeated and touted to start getting the non drug using public on board with the idea.

 

[Vastness]

^ How long is long enough? Switzerland has had supervised injection sites and in some form since 1994. The Netherlands since 2010, and probably even earlier in smaller research groups.

Overdose deaths have of course fallen significantly - as have all other measures of drug related harm and crime that you could think of, in all countries that have tried to take even smaller steps in the direction of harm reduction. In countries with harsher drug laws, quite predictably the opposite has occurred, for example in Russia, a country with extremely harsh drug laws and a government-endorsed stigma against drug users, where overdose deaths and the spread of diseases associated with IV drug abuse is off the charts. I mean really, how much evidence do you need?

It really isn't even a debate at this point. The benefits of these programs have been clear for a long time and no-one who works in any drug or addiction related field would really try to argue any different. The issue, and the reason that these programs are not already more widespread, is NOT that it isn't clear if they work or not.

 

[ro4eva]

How long is long enough? Switzerland has had supervised injection sites and in some form since 1994.

Right, you are. It has been approximately 25 years, and, I think that two and a half decades is more than commensurate in this context. One is left wondering how long it'll take to convince the biggest skeptics. 50 years? Their entire lives? That's a stretch and then some.

 

[cj]

The skeptics don't want to be convinced. It's not about the human toll for them. It's money and power

 

[LucidSDreamr]

< is it? I think most of the population makes no money off of drugs being illegal yet they hold a stigma towards users anyways.

My theory is that the prejudices against drug users comes down to jealousy. Just like everyone slut shaming the IG model with a perfect body pulling millions a year for photographing her ass, ppl are all jealous of her but instead stigmatize her.

...people wish they could be high on drugs and feel good but society and thier upbringing doesn't allow them, so they are jealous of and hate those that do get high.


The other reason is that drug users victimize ppl but nowhere near to the extent drunks do..so I dont give this theory as much weight

 

[cj]

< is it? I think most of the population makes no money off of drugs being illegal yet they hold a stigma towards users anyways.

My theory is that the prejudices against drug users comes down to jealousy. Just like everyone slut shaming the IG model with a perfect body pulling millions a year for photographing her ass, ppl are all jealous of her but instead stigmatize her.

...people wish they could be high on drugs and feel good but society and thier upbringing doesn't allow them, so they are jealous of and hate those that do get high.


The other reason is that drug users victimize ppl but nowhere near to the extent drunks do..so I dont give this theory as much weight

I think your right to some extent but the government doesn't give a shit what people think. 90 percent of people wouldn't know the center was even open. There is big money in keeping drugs illegal and those interests know every step towards sanity is a step towards the money tap being turned off. Whether it's private prisons who need drug offenders. Local governments who fund the courts and police through fines and probation fees. It goes on and on.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Agree with that. Yea the entities that have the power want them to stay illegal regardless of what the population wants

 

[JessFR]

I think your right to some extent but the government doesn't give a shit what people think. 90 percent of people wouldn't know the center was even open. There is big money in keeping drugs illegal and those interests know every step towards sanity is a step towards the money tap being turned off. Whether it's private prisons who need drug offenders. Local governments who fund the courts and police through fines and probation fees. It goes on and on.

If I'm honest I've never found this argument very compelling.

Legalizing drugs would in itself make obscene amounts of money. I don't see how you can arbitrarally argue that money is the reason drugs stay illegal when its also just as good a motive to legalize them.

There's a bunch of argument like this where it seems like the same argument can be used to justify completely opposite outcomes.

 

[cj]

Both arguments can be true at the same time. The people who make money off prohibition want it illegal people positioned to make money off legalization want it legal. It just happens that the prohibition side already has money and the status quo on thier side. Politicians are usually not eager to be the ones to initiate controversial changes.