California Governor Bans Drug Injection Centers for Overdose Control

Gavin Newsom’s presidential ambitions have come in the way of one of America’s most progressive issues, experimentation with centers for controlled illegal drug use. The governor of California, one of the bastions of advanced ideas in the country, has vetoed on Monday a law proposed by his party that gave the green light to the implementation of pilot projects for addicts in the cities of Los Angeles, San Francis and Oakland. “The unlimited number of injection sites that this rule would approve, centers that could open in the second half of this decade, can create a world of unintended consequences,” said Newsom, one of the figures who aspires to relieve Joe Biden in the race for the White House if the current president decides not to stand for re-election.

This was the only bill Newsom vetoed in a package of 21 bills. California Democrats had drawn up a proposal that would allow local governments in the state’s most populous counties, with 40 million people, to open centers with clean needles and where health specialists could intervene if an opiate user had a overdose. The rule was intended to attack a reality that afflicts the country, which in 2021 registered the highest number of deaths from substance abuse in history, with more than 108,000 deaths. This epidemic has been fueled by fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate. In San Francisco alone, more than 1,600 people have died of overdoses since 2020, almost double the number of victims left by the coronavirus.

Newsom has recognized in a letter where he has argued his decision, that these centers “could improve the safety and health of urban areas.” However, these would need to work alongside a robust harm reduction plan. “These unintended consequences in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland cannot be taken lightly. Worsening drug use in those areas is not a risk that we can expose ourselves to,” wrote the president, who in 2018, when he began his run for governor, said that he was “very open” to that type of program. That year, Governor Jerry Brown also vetoed a similar but less ambitious initiative.

Harm reduction centers, however, already exist in the United States. There are two narcosalas in New York as of November 2021, which have helped prevent some 400 overdoses. The mayor of that city, Eric Adams, also a Democrat, said last May that he is willing to go “further” and allow access to these controlled injection centers, which are operated thanks to private donations, open their doors to the people 24 hours a day. “This crisis does not wait and neither should we,” the politician wrote on Twitter.

Newsom, who continues to openly deny that he intends to run for the presidency of the United States, has said that he has instructed his administration to discuss “minimum standards and best practices” for overdose prevention with local governments. “I keep an open provision for when legislators come back with a truly limited pilot program,” added the president, who in 2004 became one of the first Democrats to openly support same-sex marriages despite having been heavily criticized by Democrats themselves. members of his party. Time proved him right.

Political communication experts, however, agree that having approved the rule could affect Newsom outside of California, a state that won an impeachment attempt last year and that this fall will easily get a second term. There are indications that the president is thinking outside his entity, at the national level. This year he has paid advertising in Florida and California to contrast the progressive policies that he champions against the crusades carried out by his counterparts in the aforementioned states.

“Ron De Santis, the governor of Florida, would make Newsom the pro-heroin governor,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist. De Santis is one of the favorites to win the candidacy of the conservative party in the event that Donald Trump is prevented from running in 2024.

Despite Newsom’s veto, which has disappointed the most liberal sectors of his state, San Francisco attorney David Chiu has said that the city government will allow the operation of non-profit drug chambers in the city. . “To save lives, I fully support following New York’s lead in modeling prevention programs,” Chiu said in a statement. Two organizations, HealthRight360 and the AIDS Foundation, have said they are willing to launch these pilot tests in the city by the bay, but are waiting for locations and financial support.

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