Jeffrey A. Singer
Jeffrey A. Singer
Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R‑NY) has long opposed overdose prevention centers (OPCs). The City of New York and its Department of Health authorized the harm reduction organization OnPointNYC to open two OPCs, one in East Harlem and one in Washington Heights. They opened on November 30, 2021. Rep. Malliotakis opposed the move, and asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to intervene, citing the 1986 federal “crack house statute” (21 USC Sec. 856) banning people from owning or managing a “building or enclosure” where they know that people use federally prohibited substances. When her efforts failed, she introduced a bill in the House of Representatives nine days later to try to stop it.
Exercising prosecutorial discretion, the US Department of Justice took no action against the OPCs, and by December 2024, the OPCs had reversed more than 1,600 overdoses—people who might otherwise have been fatality statistics.
Now Malliotakis is at it again. Hoping that the Trump administration’s Department of Justice would share her antipathy towards this harm-reduction strategy that has been saving lives in advanced countries like ours since 1986, she has written Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking her to enforce the crack house statute and close down the OPCs.
In a 2023 Cato Institute briefing paper, I reported that 147 OPCs operated in 91 locations and 16 countries. Since then, a new OPC recently opened in Providence, RI, after lawmakers there approved a pilot program. Last summer, Vermont lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto and authorized an OPC for the city of Burlington. Burlington’s mayor hopes to see it operating later this year. Minnesota’s legislature authorized up to 15 independently run OPCs in 2023, but none have opened thus far.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in November 2023, » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/overdose-prevention-centers-are-saving-lives-so-why-rep-malliotakis-trying-shut-them-down