{"id":54979,"date":"2022-06-01T13:05:44","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T21:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/california-bill-to-allow-safe-drug-consumption-site-pilot-program-heads-to-assembly-floor-following-committee-vote\/"},"modified":"2022-06-01T17:45:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-02T01:45:52","slug":"california-bill-to-allow-safe-drug-consumption-site-pilot-program-heads-to-assembly-floor-following-committee-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/california-bill-to-allow-safe-drug-consumption-site-pilot-program-heads-to-assembly-floor-following-committee-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"California Bill To Allow Safe Drug Consumption Site Pilot Program Heads To Assembly Floor Following Committee Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A California Assembly committee on Wednesday approved a Senate-passed bill that would establish a pilot program to allow certain jurisdictions throughout the state to authorize safe consumption sites where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment.<\/p>\n

The harm reduction legislation from Sen. Scott Wiener (D) was first introduced in December 2020 and advanced through the full Senate in April of last year before being transmitted to the Assembly, where it\u2019s since been approved by the Health Committee and has now passed out of the Public Safety Committee in a 5-2 vote on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Our bill to authorize safe consumption sites in San Francisco, Los Angeles & Oakland (SB 57) just passed its final committee & now heads to the full Assembly.<\/p>\n

Safe consumption sites are a proven strategy to reduce overdose deaths & infections & help get people into recovery.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) June 1, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The legislation now goes to the Assembly floor, but if approved there it will still need to go back to the Senate for concurrence before potentially heading to the governor\u2019s desk because amendments have been made since the chamber of origin first passed it.<\/p>\n

Wiener, who has championed several drug policy reform bills in the legislation, including one to legalize possession of psychedelics that\u2019s sat in legislative limbo<\/a> since clearing the Senate, said on Wednesday that \u201cwe are experiencing a crisis of overdose deaths, and these are preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told committee members ahead of the vote that safe consumption sites \u201callow people who are already using drugs\u2014often on our streets, on our sidewalks, in front of people\u2019s homes or businesses where people, including children, can see them using drugs\u201d to instead \u201cgo inside to a safe and clean space where they can bring the drugs they were already going to use and use it in an environment where we make sure that they have clean needles, where there\u2019s supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014
\nMarijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,000 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills<\/a> in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters<\/a> pledging at least $25\/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don\u2019t miss any developments.<\/strong>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nLearn more about our marijuana bill tracker<\/a> and become a supporter on Patreon<\/a> to get access.
\n\u2014<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone overdoses, the overdose can be quickly reversed,\u201d he said, adding that authorizing these facilities means \u201cwe can connect people to services and, ultimately, for a significant percentage of people, recovery services.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the senator pointed out, these types of programs have precedent, with other countries having already effectively demonstrated that they can save lives. Despite federal obstacles, New York City became the first city in the U.S. to sanction safe consumption sites<\/a>, and officials have touted the early results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An attempt by an non-profit organization to open such a facility in Philadelphia did prompt the Justice Department under the Trump administration to litigate its establishment in an ongoing case<\/a>, but plaintiffs say that the government actually seems that it may be amenable<\/a> to shifting its course as it pushes for a harm reduction approach to the drug crisis.<\/p>\n

DOJ said in February that it is actively \u201cevaluating supervised consumption sites<\/a>, including discussions with state and local regulators about appropriate guardrails for such sites, as part of an overall approach to harm reduction and public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only do safe consumption sites help minimize overdose deaths, but they can also reduce the spread of diseases like HIV and limit syringe litter in public spaces, Wiener said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the virtual absence of significant risks\u2014direct risks like increased drug use, drug sales or crime, we\u2019re seeing the federal government\u2014even, imagine that, the U.S. federal government started to warm up to this approach,\u201d the senator said. \u201cSo this is not some new, untested strategy. This is a strategy that\u2019s been around for a long time. We know it works. We know it saves lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sponsor\u2019s bill would not impose safe consumption sites on any jurisdictions. In fact, only San Francisco, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and Oakland would be eligible to participate in the volunteer pilot program, starting on January 1, 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill<\/a> would require all local jurisdictions that choose to participate in the overdose prevention program to confer and choose a single independent entity, as specified, to conduct a peer-reviewed study, funded by the participating jurisdictions, of the statewide efficacy of the overdose prevention programs and the community impacts of the programs, to be submitted to the Legislature and the Governor\u2019s office on or before January 15, 2027,\u201d a summary says.<\/p>\n

\n

California, we need to act now. <\/p>\n

We can’t listen to reactionary voices trying to score political points by devaluing & demeaning people suffering from addiction.<\/p>\n

LA, SF and Oakland *want* to open these sites. Let’s let them. <\/p>\n

It’s time to do this.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) June 1, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A poll released in April found that a majority of Americans (64 percent)\u00a0support allowing safe consumption sites<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a New York Assembly committee recently advanced a bill to establish a statewide safe consumption site program<\/a>, allowing regulators to authorize the facilities.<\/p>\n

Under the proposal, the New York Health Department and local agencies would have the ability to authorize overdose prevention centers<\/a> and regulate them.<\/p>\n

While the Biden administration has yet to take a specific position on policy proposals to authorize safe consumption facilities, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)\u00a0put out a pair of requests for applications<\/a>\u00a0(RFAs) in December for an effort that will provide funding for efforts to investigate how that and other harm reduction policies could help address the drug crisis.<\/p>\n

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow has repeatedly expressed concerns about the harms caused by the criminalization of drug possession, and she told Marijuana Moment in an interview last year that she is open to continuing to explore \u201chow these support systems as a community can help people, for example, engage in treatment, how they can prevent them from getting infected from HIV and how they can\u00a0prevent them from overdosing and dying<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Activists in several cities have attempted to establish harm reduction centers in recent years, citing promising results from programs that have been put into place in other countries like Canada and Australia.<\/p>\n

In October, the Supreme Court\u00a0rejected a request to hear a case<\/a>\u00a0on the legality of establishing the Safehouse facilities, but the case is still before a lower federal court.<\/p>\n

The White House drug czar, Rahul Gupta, recently said that it\u2019s\u00a0critical to explore \u201cany and every option\u201d to reduce overdose deaths, and that\u00a0could include allowing safe consumption sites<\/a>\u00a0for illegal substances if the evidence supports their efficacy.<\/p>\n

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) director previously said that he couldn\u2019t talk about the harm reduction centers due to the ongoing litigation related to Safehouse, but he seemed more open to the possibility in an interview with CNN late last year.<\/p>\n

The secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, also recently signaled that the Biden administration would not move to block the establishment safe injection sites, stressing that \u201cwe are literally trying to give users a lifeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a department spokesperson\u00a0later walked those remarks back<\/a>, stating that \u201cHHS does not have a position on supervised consumption sites\u201d and the \u201cissue is a matter of ongoing litigation.\u201d In any case, it would be up to DOJ to decide whether to pursue operators of the facilities under the Controlled Substances Act.<\/p>\n

Becerra was among eight top state law enforcement officials who filed an amicus brief in support of the Safehouse\u2019s safe injection site plan<\/a>\u00a0when he served as California\u2019s attorney general.<\/p>\n

A coalition of 80 current and former prosecutors and law enforcement officials\u2014including one who became Biden\u2019s pick for U.S. attorney of Massachusetts\u2014previously filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to take up Safehouse\u2019s safe consumption case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While New York City is the first to open the harm reduction centers, the governor of Rhode Island did sign a historic bill in July to\u00a0establish a safe consumption site pilot program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts lawmakers\u00a0advanced similar legislation last year<\/a>, but it was not ultimately enacted.<\/p>\n

\n

New York Marijuana Regulators Approve Rules On Packaging, Advertising And Testing As State Readies For Adult-Use Sales<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Photo courtesy of Jernej Furman<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post California Bill To Allow Safe Drug Consumption Site Pilot Program Heads To Assembly Floor Following Committee Vote<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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A California Assembly committee on Wednesday approved a Senate-passed bill that would establish a pilot program to allow certain jurisdictions throughout the state to authorize safe consumption sites where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment. The harm reduction legislation from Sen. Scott Wiener (D) wasContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":54980,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54981,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54979\/revisions\/54981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}