Safe Injection Sites Save Lives and Don’t Hurt Communities But NYC Still Can’t Have Them

Since they opened, New York City's two safe injection sites in upper Manhattan have both saved lives and lowered crime in their surrounding areas, according to a new report from a leading medical journal. The report, coauthored by a former NYPD captain and published in JAMA, an off-shoot of the American Medical Association, found that 911 calls related to crime dipped by over 30 percent in the areas surrounding the sites, while 911 calls for medical emergencies decreased by more than half. Weapons arrests decreased by over 70 percent in the areas around the sites, while there was also a 74 percent decrease in drug arrests, as police ramped down enforcement around the injection centers. 

Even as arrests and crime reports dropped in the areas, neighbors were still not too pleased with what they saw—the study found 311 calls related to "drug activity" rose by over 100 percent near the sites. 

Brandon del Pozo, the former NYPD officer who was one of the authors on the study, told the Daily News that community concerns about crime weren't backed up by the statistics. 

"The decreases in drug enforcement were dramatic and impossible to miss, but they did not seem to affect crime or quality of life," del Pozo said. "The overdose prevention centers report a generally positive relationship with local police, and this study suggests the sites can be successfully managed through collaboration with police and harm reduction workers.”

Since opening in February 2021, the city's two safe injection sites have provided care in over 700 overdoses. While New York City Mayor Eric Adams has supported the programs and wants to see them expanded, Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced she would not allow any of the billions in state money from an opioid settlement to be used for overdose prevention centers, even after a state panel recommended money go to support them. Hochul said she wanted the money to go to places that would "withstand a legal challenge," referring to the Biden administration's opposition to the life-saving safe injection sites. 

This summer, Damian Williams, the U.S. Aatorney for the Southern District of New York, issued a warning to the City and OnPoint, the operators of the sites, of possible imminent legal action by the federal government to close down the sites, saying that the City and state allowing the operation of the only safe consumption sites in the country was "unacceptable," and that his office is "prepared to exercise all options—including enforcement—if this situation does not change in short order.”

In 2022, there were 3,026 overdose deaths in New York City, the highest total since the City began keeping records on overdoses in 2002. Given a proven solution, no one with power actually seems all that interested in doing anything to stop people from the dying. 

Here are some links to safely consume, regardless of what the government says: 

• Mayor Eric Adams showed off an electric helicopter in Lower Manhattan that he says will rid New York City of both noise and air pollution from nonstop fuel-powered helicopter traffic...which, yeah, will totally happen. Adams stopped just short of getting in the chromed-out RC flier when asked about the ongoing federal investigation into his campaign. 
• Speaking of which, more details continue to ooze out from both the feds and the Adams camp—former NYPD cop John Miller, who is somehow allowed by CNN to byline stories about his former employer, says that the feds raided about a dozen sites related into looking at whether Adams traded favors for campaign donations with Turkish businessmen, and that former Fire Department chief Dan Nigro has already spoken to a grand jury about whether Adams tried to expedite approvals on behalf of the Turkish government.
• New York City has expanded its 30-day stay limit to all single adult migrants in the city, part of its efforts to push migrants out of its shelter system. 
• The FDNY says a weekend blaze that killed three in Crown Heights and injured 14 was started by an e-bike battery.
• Following that fire, the FDNY commissioner has cast the blame directly at the feet of online retailers for continuing to sell e-bike batteries that aren't up to safety standards.
• Don Jr. was not going to throw his father under the bus at this late hour. 
• Regents exams might no longer be needed to graduate from New York high schools, but we will never get those hours spent taking the Math A Regents back again... 
• New weed stores might get the green light from an upstate judge after regulators and "veteran groups" near a settlement.
• And finally, if Amtrak service wasn't bad enough already, this really isn't a great sign: