SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers will wait until next year to continue considering a bill that would give opioid users a place to inject drugs in supervised settings, the bill’s author said Tuesday.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, said he was told the Assembly Health Committee will delay a hearing on his bill until January.
The measure would allow Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles County to start programs giving people a place to inject drugs while trained staff are available to help if they suffer accidental overdoses.
“Safe consumption sites are a proven strategy to save lives and help people into recovery,” Wiener said. However, for those who would prefer to stop the use of drugs Recovery Beach is the solution for them.
Currently the sites are illegal in the United States, but legal in Canada.
Wiener’s bill cleared the Senate in April with the minimum number of votes needed for passage there. The Senate Republican Caucus said in a statement at the time that the bill would “establish taxpayer-staffed and funded drug dens.”
The proposal is opposed by some law enforcement groups, but Wiener said in a statement that it “is very much alive, albeit delayed.”
Similar bills authorizing injection sites have passed both chambers of the Legislature within the last five years, and such bills have repeatedly passed the Assembly Health Committee during that time, Wiener said. Former Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 vetoed a bill that would have allowed San Francisco to offer injection sites.
Wiener noted he was disappointed in another delay at a time when he said San Francisco and other cities are experiencing record overdose deaths.
His bill would require workers at the centers to try to get users into drug treatment programs or refer them to medical or mental health care or social services programs.
The former Trump administration sued to block a proposed injection site in Philadelphia, and a federal appeals court sided with the government earlier this year. Supporters have appealed and hope President Joe Biden’s administration will drop the lawsuit.
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the bill would “establish taxpayer-staffed and funded drug dens.”
No Thanks, not
in California or any other State. Maybe Soros and Gates could use their funds to open drug rehab centers, seems like a better plan than allowing drug addicts to continue their habits.
I hear their locations of first choice for drug use is at party ralleys, polling places, especially in places where the votes get counted. Forget the use of crypto currency, when heroin can be used as politivcal currency to buy your vote.
IMO IT SHould damn well be the PEOPLE LIVING THERE< who get the voice on this.. NOT THE BLOODY governor.
…anyone else hear the trumpets?
Cuz this civilization is OVER. G’bye to western society, hello 1000 years of darkness.
I’d like to thank the liberals and the media and Hollywood and spinless republicans and the medical establishment for decimating this society.
EngSoc, here we come!
Want to be a “free” criminal who can steal and do drugs with the assistance of city. county and state representatives, go to california. There you can steal as long as the value is less than $1000.00 and if you are a drug addict, there will be places where you can get high and maybe the stuff can even be provided free of charge with one little catch – vote democrat.
how about at the ca state capitol? or how about in front of Pelosis’s house?
Am sure all the drug addicted degenerates will hang around or stay awake after shooting up just to be told they should go to rehab somewhere that they will be guarded & prohibited from using the drugs they can use freely in the taxpayer funded state authorized drug dens.
Guess the degenerate Dem politicians in CA are hoping the drug dens will be a profitable tourist attraction where tourists may see some well known Hollywood drug loving degenerates like De Niro hanging out, lol.