PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has vetoed a bill that would ban supervised injection sites in most of the city. The veto is largely symbolic though, since an override is virtually guaranteed.
Kenney acknowledges that City Council has the 12 votes needed for an override, but he said he simply could not let the bill take effect without at least trying to stop it.
“I like those folks, they’re friends of mine, but in this particular instance, I don’t think they’re right,” he said.
The bill to ban supervised injection sites, sometimes called safe injection sites or overdose prevention centers, passed overwhelmingly. The city currently has no such facilities — where people with addiction can use drugs with sterile equipment and medical supervision, as well as access to treatment referrals and counseling, without fear of dying from an overdose. The bill would prevent setting them up in nine out of 10 council districts. Only Jaime Gauthier’s West Philadelphia district is not included.
The main sponsor, Quetcy Lozada, represents Kensington, which is besieged with open-air drug dealing and using, but Kenney said the logic of keeping supervised injection sites away is flawed.
“To say you’re tired of seeing people shooting up on the street in front of your kids, you’re tired of needles on the ground, and then you keep it outdoors?” he said. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say you want to address the problem of opioids, heroin, fentanyl — and then allow people to inject alone and die.”
More than 1,400 people in Philadelphia died from overdoses last year.
Mayor's letter
In a letter, Kenney calls the bill “troublingly anti-science and misleading, not only blocking the opening of [overdose prevention centers] but also validating misplaced fears and fallacies about a lifesaving medical model that would benefit all members of the communities impacted by drug use.”
Lozada responded to the veto Wednesday afternoon, saying Council should address what she termed "Mayor Kenney's complete disregard for the voices of constituents in almost every corner of this city."
In her statement, she called Kenney's reasoning flawed. "He claimed that as a Council we have passed the buck and are putting decisions in the hands of the 'loudest voices in the room,'" she said. "Those voices belong to children, families, and small businesses that call the neighborhoods impacted most by this epidemic [home]."
The federal government is studying the effectiveness of supervised injection sites, but Kenney firmly believes they are “critical tools” that save lives.
“You can get someone better if they’re alive,” he added. “If they’re dead, they can’t rehab.”