SAN FRANCISCO—The California State Senate passed a bill on Aug. 21 authorizing San Francisco to open a facility for injecting illegal drugs, which, if it opens, will be the first of its kind in the nation. A coalition is working to stop the initiative.
The push for establishing what is called a safe injection facility or supervised injection facility (SIF) has been ongoing for over a year. The bill just passed by the senate was passed by the California Assembly in June 2017.
The backers of the measure portray it as an urgent public health measure.
The bill’s sponsor, Susan Talamantes Eggman, said in a statement, “We are in the midst of an epidemic, and this bill will grant us another tool to fight it—to provide better access to services like treatment and counseling, to better protect public health and safety, and to save lives.”
Meanwhile, the city is pushing ahead with plans to open the nation’s first supervised injection facility, but is doing so gingerly in the face of opposition. A mock injection site will be on Aug. 28-31 for the public to tour.
‘Virtual Legalization’
A coalition of five organizations, together with the California Narcotic Officers’ Association (CNOA), held a joint press conference in San Francisco on Aug. 17 to urge the Department of Justice and local citizens to stop the SIF.
The coalition consists of four California-based and one Vancouver-based organization: Americans Against Legalization of Marijuana, California for Liberty, Christian Social Concern Association (Vancouver), the International Faith Based Coalition, and Organization for Justice and Equality.
The coalition’s press release said the opening of the injection center would amount to the “virtual legalization of all illegal drugs.”
The CNOA stated there is no pathway to treatment in an injection center, and there are no efforts to ensure that people leaving the center are not impaired and won’t harm themselves or others.
Both press releases noted that with the opening of an SIF police officers will be handcuffed if they prosecute anybody carrying illegal drugs on streets in the city, since the approval of the SIF requires leniency on drug crimes; and there may be tremendous liability issues for the local government if drug addicts die or get injured due to overdoses in an SIF.
Overdoses
Backers of SIFs say that staff at the facilities can treat those who overdose, saving lives.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in April 2017 stating that “SIS (Safe Injection Site) reduce overdose deaths for entire neighborhoods around the sites, and there has never been a recorded overdose death in any of the nearly 100 sites around the world.”
Reverend Wayne Lo from Vancouver’s Christian Social Concern Association responded to this claim by quoting data from the British Columbia health department. According to Lo, the story is not the deaths inside the facility, but the increase of deaths outside it.
“In [the] year 2003, when the injection site first started operation in Vancouver, the total number of overdose deaths was 28. Four years later, in 2007, the total overdose deaths became 46. In 2015, the figure became 134. In 2016, the figure was 215. In 2017, the figure was over 410.”
“The injection site was a total failure,” Lo said. “Within six blocks in the vicinity of the injection site, a lot of violence happens daily. Used needles can easily be seen around the back alleys. Drug dealers can be seen [at] work within the vicinity. Human urine is everywhere. There is a school within five blocks from the injection site. The students there have to be very careful not to trip on the abandoned needles.”
After a similar SIF was proposed in Vermont, the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement in December 2017 pointing out such sites are illegal: “It is a crime, not only to use illicit narcotics, but to manage and maintain sites on which such drugs are used and distributed. Thus, exposure to criminal charges would arise for users and SIF workers and overseers. The properties that host SIFs would also be subject to federal forfeiture.”
Public Pressure
Under public pressure, San Francisco’s plans have changed a few times.
The San Francisco Health Commission approved the opening of SIFs on Feb. 6. A study showed that the city had an estimated 22,000 intravenous drug users, and there were 100 injection overdose deaths in 2017.
The Health Commission’s approval of opening SIFs was based on the suggestions from the city’s “Safe Injection Service Task Force.” The current mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, was then the county supervisor who led and supported the efforts by of the Task Force.
The city originally planned to have three to five SIFs, with the first two to open in July. Now the city is so far only planning to open its mock site at the end of August.
The coalition opposing San Francisco’s SIF might take encouragement from the track record of other cities. Seattle was poised to launch an SIF in November 2017, but failed to do so. Philadelphia approved SIFs in January, but is not ready to open one.
The bill passed by the California Senate will now go back to the California Assembly. If it passes there—in June 2017 it passed by only two votes—then it will go to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.
The Epoch Times contacted the San Francisco mayor’s office about the legal status and the safety concerns regarding the upcoming SIF in the city, but received no response.