A top Justice Department official is putting cities considering medically-supervised drug injection sites on notice: If you open one, prepare for swift and aggressive legal action, reports WHYY radio in Philadelphia. With record numbers of fatal overdoses, several cities are working on plans to launch facilities where people can inject illegal drugs with staff on hand to help them if they overdose. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he understands city leaders are desperate to curb the mounting overdose deaths, but providing a place for people to use heroin and other illegal substances is a violation of federal law. “I’m not aware of any valid basis for the argument that you can engage in criminal activity as long as you do it in the presence of someone with a medical condition,” Rosenstein says.
City officials in Philadelphia and San Francisco say they are moving forward with their plans, despite the threats. California lawmakers have passed a bill awaiting the governor’s approval that would advance a three-year supervised injection site pilot program. San Francisco Mayor London Breed says cities should not back down, given the worsening overdose problem. The view from Washington is different. “Just because someone tells you in San Francisco that San Francisco is not going to prosecute you for doing something, that does not make it legal. It remains illegal after federal law,” Rosenstein says. No matter how severe the crisis gets, Rosenstein says inviting people into a space and permitting them to use dangerous drugs there is a troubling notion. It may, in Rosenstein’s view, even accelerate the problem. “This is not a disease that gets spread like the flu,” he says. “People can only become addicted if they have access to these illegal drugs. And so if we can prevent that access, we can prevent the addiction.”