NYC opens "supervised injection sites" for I-V drug users--taxpayer funded, of course

Here's how the NY Times reported this "thrilling event" yesterday--edited and interleaved with my take.

In an attempt to curb a surge in overdose deaths caused by increasingly potent street drugs, New York City has authorized two "supervised injection sites" in Manhattan to begin operating today.

City officials say staff at the sites will provide clean needles, administer naloxone to reverse overdoses and provide users with options for addiction treatment.  Users will bring their own drugs.

*For now, at least.*  I'm surprised the city isn't *giving* junkies heroin.  If city pols are willing to have taxpayers pay to set up and staff the shooting galleries, give 'em needles and syringes and be ready to inject 'em with the overdose-recovery drug, why not be even more "supportive" and give 'em the drugs too?  I mean, isn't the point to make it as easy as possible for junkies to shoot up?  And giving the drugs to junkies keeps addicts from having to steal or mug residents to get the cash to buy their fix.  So it makes sense, eh?  You can see this is the next push, justified by "reducing crime."

The city will become the first in the U.S. to use tax dollars to operate injection sites — facilities that pro-drug activists praise as providing a less punitive and more effective approach to addressing addiction.

 "...a more effective approach to addressing addiction," ya say?  Not quite seeing the "more effective" aspect of this new approach.  Seems ta me the Dems who run NYC are just using tax dollars to subsidize addiction--which, as everyone should know, means you get more of it.  Guess Democrats don't believe subsidizing something always results in more of whatever you subsidized.  Typical ignorance--but they get to feel virtuous, and get more votes.  Dem win, eh?

Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle have taken steps toward supervised injection but haven't yet opened sites.

Seems like those cities have something in common.  Ah yes: Democrat ruled.

The two Manhattan sites have already been operating needle exchange programs, and some residents in the communities have already raised concerns about...

Pause here.  If you thought the Times would have a local "...raising concerns about whether the city should be spending scarce tax dollars to increase addiction," you clearly haven't read the Times.  This is the kind of thing they push.  So what's the "concern" expressed by "some residents"?

...about the decision to place them in less-affluent areas of the borough.

"Your shooting gallery has damaged our neighborhood.  Give us money to compensate us."

City health commissioner Dr. Dave A. Chokshi said the city was "moving forward to address a public health crisis."

“2020 was the deadliest year on record for overdoses.  Every four hours someone dies of a drug overdose here,” he said. “We feel a deep conviction and also sense of urgency in opening overdose prevention centers.”

There's a reason Dave is feeding at the public trough:  He's a master of the art ofchanging the *name* of what's being funded.  So instead of "taxpayer-funded shooting gallery with free needles and staff" Dave calls them "overdose prevention centers."
   Tell ya what, sparky:  I'll bet the number of overdose deaths in the city next year doesn't drop by even one.  But you'll still claim it's a huge success, cuz...Democrats.

Mayor de Blasio began pushing safe injection sites in 2018, citing their use in European and Canadian cities. 

[Actually the Times said "championing" instead of "pushing" cuz the latter was too on-the-nose.

The decision to open the sites comes during the mayor’s last few weeks in office.  He said opening the sites will show other cities that “a smarter approach is possible.”

Oh, no doubt about that!  But almost certainly not the approach he's pushing.  For example, how many drug overdose deaths per capita in, say, Singapore?

The mayor also sent a letter to the providers promising “not to take enforcement action” against their operations.  Four of the city’s five district attorneys support city-funded shooting galleries.

The Times used the term "drug sites" to gloss over the fact that the city has ordered taxpayers to pay to increase addiction to I-V drugs.  Equity, citizen.

“We have always been trying to strike the right balance between enforcement, rehabilitation and prevention,” said Manhattan district attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. 

To Cy the "right balance" is zero enforcement, zero prevention, but rather free needles, caring staff and encouragement to shoot up.  To Vance, that's "the right balance."  And Democrats agree.

“I would rather have people who are going to shoot up do it in a safe and secure venue. ”

More than 2,000 people died of a drug overdose in New York City in 2020, the highest total since the city began keeping track of overdose deaths in 2000. During the first three months of 2021, there were close to 600 overdose deaths.

The city will not operate or staff the drug injection sites, Dr. Chokshi said.  Instead the city will pay the two non-profit agencies that run the needle exchange programs to operate the sites.

Federal law, however, has yet to catch up.  It's against federal law to operate, own or rent a location for the purpose of using illegal substances.  Two years ago the Justice Department, under the Trump administration, sued to stop a supervised injection facility from opening in Philadelphia.

The Biden administration has embraced harm reduction methods [?] but has not explicitly endorsed supervised injection sites.  Dr. Chokshi said he believes the feds will allow the facilities to operate because of a “a shared sense of urgency” about addressing the overdose crisis.

So the Times claims the bidenfail regime has "embraced harm-reduction methods," eh?  Gosh, that sounds SO warm and fuzzy and...vague.  How about an example?  Oh wait, there isn't one.  You guys are just doing PR work for the Democrats, as always.
   The regime will certainly ignore the federal law all right--violating the Constitution to do so--because they'll claim any violation of some trivial, up-tight "law" is justified by the "urgency of addressing the overdose crisis."  "Addressing..."  But they won't crack down on drugs being walked across our open southern border because...um...it's just not fair to deny addicts their drugs of choice, right?
   Democrat pols delight in spending tax dollars on crap like this instead of on policing because it makes 'em look warm and fuzzy.  Is there an "overdose crisis"?  Should we be spending a million dollars a year--soon to be ten times that--to allow determined junkies to shoot up more comfortably?

In East Harlem, already home to a heavy concentration of methadone clinics and other drug treatment centers, Eva Chan is concerned that opening of an injection site would further cement the neighborhood’s reputation as a place where drug use and sales are tolerated.

Proponents of "supervised injection sites" claim the facilities will not only prevent overdose deaths but can actually stem the problem of public drug use that often leaves a trail of used syringes on the street and in parks.

An official with a network of homeless shelters in the Bronx, which is home to some of the neighborhoods with the highest overdose rates in the city, said safe injection sites could also help to reduce street homelessness.

“For a lot of our street-homeless clients, the reason they’re out there is because they have serious addiction,” said Scott Auwarter, assistant executive director of Bronxworks. “For them to be in a facility, to be able to use safely, gives us a chance to engage them and maybe convince some of them to take a low-threshold bed someplace.”

Supporters of the injection sites are celebrating the opening of "supervised illegal drug injection."  Dr. Chinazo O. Cunningham, a deputy commissioner in the city health department, popped a bottle of champagne. “It’s really an amazing moment,” she said. “To bring evidence-based lifesaving treatment and initiatives to people who deserve it, to do that with love and respect and dignity, I really am incredibly proud to be here at this moment.”

Absolutely.  Nothing says "We respect drug addicts" like ordering taxpayers to give them free needles and provide safe places for them to shoot up.  It's a total inversion of the values that normally produce a good society: encouraging addiction rather than trying to eliminate it.  One can just as easily make the case that the city should open "supervised pleasure sites" and make hookers -- excuse me, "sex workers" salaried government employees.  

Unionized, of course.

Source.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/nyregion/supervised-injection-sites-nyc.html