NYC Heroin Injection Sites Get Thumbs Down From Feds

NEW YORK — The U.S. Department of Justice shot down New York City's plans to open supervised facilities for heroin users last week, saying they would flout federal law.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans in May to establish four "overdose prevention centers" where drug users could safely shoot up under the watch of trained staff. Such sites aimed at preventing fatal overdoses have proven effective in Canada and Europe, the mayor said then.

But the Department of Justice finds them "utterly incompatible" with how governments should respond to the nationwide opioid epidemic, intergovernmental affairs and public liaison Jessica E. Hart wrote in a letter to state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island). The letter, received Sept. 12, says the sites would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act.

"The Department of Justice's agents and prosecutors will not stand idly by while misguided, dangerous, and destructive federal criminal violations take place," Hart wrote Malliotakis, a Republican who ran against de Blasio for mayor last year. "The Department will, as always, enforce the law where prosecution will serve a substantial federal interest."

De Blasio, a Democrat, got behind supervised injection sites after a persistent push from advocates, who argue they would give addicts a safe place to use drugs and get medical treatment. The city plans to set up two sites in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn and one in The Bronx.

An opioid was involved in more than 80 percent of the city's 1,487 fatal overdoses last year, city Department of Health figures show. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller that gets mixed with other drugs, was involved in more than half those deaths, according to the figures.

A Department of Health report on the injection sites noted that their staff and clients could face arrest and prosecution under federal law.

City Hall said it still plans to move forward with the injection sites despite the federal opposition. The state is still reviewing the city's plan, a city spokeswoman said.

"Our 2017 data indicates that New York City’s strategy to fight opioid overdoses is helping to slow down the epidemic," mayoral spokeswoman Marcy Miranda said in a statement. "It’s our moral obligation to connect people to treatment that’s proven to work, not criminalize them for trying to get better. We’re committed to using every tool at our disposal to save lives."

(Lead image: Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)