{"id":18770,"date":"2025-02-22T18:42:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T17:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=18770"},"modified":"2025-05-20T19:09:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T18:09:57","slug":"feds-can-inject-some-common-sense-in-nyc-and-shut-down-citys-safe-drug-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/02\/feds-can-inject-some-common-sense-in-nyc-and-shut-down-citys-safe-drug-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds can inject some common sense in NYC \u2014 and shut down city\u2019s \u2018safe\u2019 drug sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"single__header\">\n<header class=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"article-header__top\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Opinion &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">by Hannah E. Meyers, <\/span><span class=\"updated-text\" style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Published\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"updated-date\" style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Feb. 16, 2025, 6:19 a.m. ET<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-header__meta\" aria-label=\"Byline\">\n<div class=\"byline meta meta--byline\">\n<div><em>Hannah E. Meyers is a fellow and the director of policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-header__social-icons\">\n<div class=\"social-icons social-icons--horizontal\">\n<div data-comment-count=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"featured-image featured-image__wrapper m-top\">\n<figure class=\"featured-image__figure\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/02\/feds-can-inject-some-common-sense-in-nyc-and-shut-down-citys-safe-drug-sites\/onpoint\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-18771\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18771\" src=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Onpoint.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"959\" height=\"696\" srcset=\"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Onpoint.jpg 959w, https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Onpoint-640x464.jpg 640w, https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Onpoint-768x557.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 959px) 100vw, 959px\" \/><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"single__content entry-content m-bottom \">\n<p>In November, Donald Trump\u00a0made significant electoral gains\u00a0in New York\u2019s black and Latino neighborhoods, and in the city\u2019s least affluent communities. Now he is poised to take an important step to improve public safety in these voters\u2019 neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-SI) last week wrote to new Attorney General Pam Bondi,\u00a0pleading for the administration\u00a0to shut down the city\u2019s two \u201csafe injection sites.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These facilities, located in East Harlem and Washington Heights, provide supervision to drug abusers as they consume harmful substances like fentanyl, meth, heroin and cocaine.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, these are illegal drugs under federal law \u2014 and the aptly nicknamed federal \u201ccrack house statute\u201d prevents individuals from retaining property for their consumption.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Trump\u2019s Justice Department successfully shuttered similar sites in the past &#8211;\u00a0In 2019, his first administration sued to stop a Philadelphia injection center from opening, and in 2024 a US District Court judge in Pennsylvania finally agreed that the center was not exempt from federal drug laws.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--explore-more inline-module--more--thirds\" data-source-unit=\"Explore More - Tag\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__content\">\n<div class=\"layout layout--thirds\">\n<div class=\"layout__grid layout__grid--gap-10\">\n<div class=\"layout__item\">\n<div class=\"layout__inner b-top b-top-none-md p-top p-top-none-md b-left-md p-left-md\">\n<div class=\"story story--i-flex story--i-flex-none-md\">\n<h3 class=\"story__headline headline headline--xxs\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">It was a massive relief to the surrounding Philly neighborhood, which was outraged by the sneaky lack of transparency around plans that would attract drug dealers into their community.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Now Trump should listen to his NYC minority constituents and close the injection sites that are harming their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>New York\u2019s two centers, both run by non-profit OnPoint, were the first in the nation, opening in 2021 under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio \u2014 who never met an injurious policy he wouldn\u2019t support in the name of racial justice.<\/p>\n<p>De Blasio gambled successfully that the Biden administration wouldn\u2019t intervene.<\/p>\n<p>OnPoint claims to have saved over 1,000 lives by preventing overdoses. But as my colleague Charles Fain Lehman has pointed out, the sites do not reduce addiction \u2014 so they are likely just\u00a0<em>delaying<\/em>\u00a0fatalities: More than 15% of those administered naloxone are dead within a year.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, data shows that NYC overdose rates have continued to rise since the centers opened.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s no surprise, since a\u00a0rigorous look\u00a0at the data from even the most touted injection sites in other countries provide\u00a0<em>no<\/em> evidence of their effectiveness<\/p>\n<div id=\"_adr_abp_container_6\" class=\"_adr_abp_container\" data-section=\"03c62baf5d2deb8c2922df5e0e9b0789\" data-packetid=\"00000001-64ef356e-e641-44e9-aa77-cbcf3be63746\" data-render-time=\"1740245340988\">\n<div><\/div>\n<p>But rigor has never been the calling card for politicians and advocates who happily sacrifice\u00a0<em>other<\/em>\u00a0people\u2019s communities in the name of compassion.<\/div>\n<p>State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx)\u00a0has\u00a0had the chutzpah to claim\u00a0that \u201cpublic drug use, syringe litter and drug-related crime goes down\u201d around sites. In 2023, Rivera urged Gov. Hochul to expand supervised consumption sites statewide, and sponsored Senate legislation \u2014 still in committee \u2014 to do so.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, Mayor Eric\u00a0Adams also proposed\u00a0adding three more facilities to NYC \u2014 but he might be amenable to updating his views with some pressure from Washington.<\/p>\n<p>And that pressure will come if Trump cares about the lives of local residents.<\/p>\n<p>While major crimes fell 13% in northern Manhattan over the past two years, the predominantly black and Hispanic precinct around the East Harlem drug site has seen an almost 8%\u00a0<em>rise\u00a0<\/em>in major crime.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve toured that location with the Greater Harlem Coalition. Members pointed out the large early-childhood education center directly across the street from the injection site, as parents hurried their tots into school in plain view of ongoing drug deals.<\/p>\n<p>The perimeter of the block is dotted with addicts nodding off. Nearby restaurants have had to invest in private security to defend against the criminality the center attracts to the neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s been keeping this site open despite four years in which the only evidenced change is neighborhood degradation?<\/p>\n<p>Shameless advocacy by pompous, ideologically motivated and race-obsessed elites . . . whose kids don\u2019t go to preschool in Harlem.<\/p>\n<p>In August, Greater Harlem Coalition co-founder Shawn\u00a0Hill was interviewed\u00a0by one such far-left advocate: Ryan McNeil, director of harm reduction research at Yale\u2019s School of Medicine.<\/p>\n<p>McNeil was conducting funded \u201cresearch\u201d into safe injection sites \u2014 but a \u201chot mic\u201d recording revealed his and his colleagues\u2019 woke bias in favor of supporting safe injection sites (and drug decriminalization, more broadly).<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-nyp-editor-universal-promo\">\n<div class=\"universal-promo__inner\">With no sense of irony, McNeil \u2014 who is himself Caucasian \u2014 scorned Harlemites\u2019 concerns over open drug abuse as nothing but \u201cwhite discomfort,\u201d and derided Hill for suggesting that the Yale researchers should walk around and speak with actual local residents.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>But Trump has every reason to listen to these locals, three-quarters of whom are black or Latino.<\/p>\n<p>And it would behove Adams, who faces a crowded primary race this summer, to reverse his past stance and voice support for a federal closure of the city\u2019s two drug consumption sites.<\/p>\n<p>In East Harlem, Trump won about 860 more votes last year than in 2020. Now these supporters, and their neighbors he has yet to persuade, are depending on his help.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Source: https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/02\/16\/opinion\/inject-some-common-sense-shut-down-nycs-safe-drug-sites\/<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opinion &#8211;\u00a0by Hannah E. Meyers, Published\u00a0Feb. 16, 2025, 6:19 a.m. ET Hannah E. Meyers is a fellow and the director of policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute. In November, Donald Trump\u00a0made significant electoral gains\u00a0in New York\u2019s black and Latino neighborhoods, and in the city\u2019s least affluent communities. Now he is poised to take [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,32,129,68,62,64,37,67,40,36,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction","category-crime-violence-prison","category-culture","category-drug-use-various-effects","category-education","category-health","category-hiv-injecting-drug-users","category-needle-exchange","category-prevention-research","category-treatment-addiction","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}