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Harm Reduction: Measure to Bar Federal Funds for Cities With Safe Injection Sites Passes Senate

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #508)
Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy

An amendment to a Senate appropriations bill that would bar cities that open safe injection sites from receiving federal education, health, and labor funding was adopted by the Senate last week. The bill is now in conference committee, where drug reform activists are working to kill it.

drug war bad guy Jim DeMint
Sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) in apparent reaction to talk about such a facility in San Francisco, the amendment to the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education annual appropriation bill would cut off funding from those departments to any city that opens a safe injection site.

At least 27 cities in eight European countries, as well as Vancouver, Canada, and Sydney, Australia, are operating safe injection sites. They have been shown to reduce needle-sharing and the rate of new HIV and Hep C infections among injection drug users without causing increases in drug use or criminality.

No American locality has so far tried to establish such a facility. But in San Francisco, discussions are underway.

"Drug war extremists in Congress are trying to ban cities from adopting a drug policy reform that no US city has even adopted yet," warned Bill Piper, national affairs director for the Drug Policy Alliance, in an email to supporters in states whose representatives are on the conference committee. "That's how scared they are of the growing drug policy reform movement. And they might win unless you take action today. We're in a major fight and we urgently need your help because at least one of your members of Congress is a key vote."

The measure needs to be nipped in the bud, Piper warned. "If this amendment passes, we can expect members of Congress to try to pass bolder amendments, like denying federal aid to any city that decriminalizes marijuana and cutting off highway funding to any state that enacts alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug law offenses," Piper wrote. "Obviously no city will consider such reforms if it means losing all their federal aid. That's why we have to stop this amendment right here, right now. We have to show the drug war extremists that there's no support in Congress for escalating the war on drugs."

Residents of Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin need to call their senators now, Piper said. "The bill is now in conference. If we don't get this stricken from the final bill, it could be years or decades before this draconian ban is repealed," he predicted.

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

mlang52 (not verified)

Politicians ignoring medical science, again! I still wonder how educated their decisions about medical care can be. They certainly have NO EDUATION in medicine!? The fact that the drug poblem is a medical problem, is also ignored by politicians! And, you cannot legislate away medical problems. They need to get the right profession for the right job!

But, who, really, wants a bunch of over-eduated scientists taking care of them, when we can just lock them all up! NOT!!

Sat, 11/03/2007 - 8:43am Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

This is another example of stoppring an activity through the back door. Another is Ronnie Naulls who may be a good parent, but because he is supporting medical marijuana he loses his child; and that gets the same result; ending the access to drugs. It doesn't matter about benefits, etc; its the end goal that matters.

This is why agenda /lobbying is so scary now in politics. Yet it's affecting peoples lives daily.

Sat, 11/03/2007 - 10:58pm Permalink
Anonymous (not verified)

This is the most insane thing yet.I'm almost never surprised by anything congress does on the drug front but this one knockes my socks off.What are they thinking?This is classical grade school bullying at it's pettiest.How long before George Bush threatens to hold his breath till he turns blue?He could say god will take him up but that one's been done, almost to death.

Sun, 11/04/2007 - 4:22am Permalink

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