The Justice Department and a Philadelphia nonprofit have agreed to transfer a case concerning the legality of safe drug consumption sites out of a federal district court and to mediation before a magistrate judge in order to finally reach a resolution after numerous delays.<\/p>\n
Safehouse\u2014which has spent years in litigation after DOJ sued to block them from opening a harm reduction center under the Trump administration\u2014said in an email blast on Tuesday that the parties reached an agreement on moving to mediation last week \u201cto expedite a prompt resolution and begin saving lives.\u201d The nonprofit said it is hopeful that the tactic \u201cis the best way to resolve the lawsuit quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
This comes about a month after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an order requiring that DOJ reveal its position in the lawsuit by January 9<\/a>. That represented a compromise between the department\u2019s request to have until February and the nonprofit\u2019s position that it would no longer voluntarily accept additional delays after previously agreeing to continually push back the government\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n For much of the years-long case, Safehouse had described discussions with DOJ as productive and, as such, it agreed to give the department extra time to consider its position. But as time passed, the organization eventually determined that further delay would be untenable.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the court issued the mediation order that transfers the case to U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Lloret. Advocates feel<\/a> that this will speed up the case, which they hope will ultimately clarify the federal stance on safe consumption sites where people can use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised setting.<\/p>\n Marijuana Moment reached out to Safehouse staff and attorneys for comment on the development, but they did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n Last February, DOJ said that it was \u201cevaluating supervised consumption sites,<\/a>\u00a0including 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 Safehouse has been gradually losing patience with the department\u2019s protracted review process and deadline extension requests in the case, writing in a recent filing that the case \u201chas been pending for almost four years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSince the DOJ commenced this litigation in 2019 until the end of 2021, more than 3,600 lives have been lost in Philadelphia to the opioid overdose crisis. Based on 2022 projections, that number will grow to almost 5,000 deaths,\u201d it said. \u201cSafehouse and those that need its life-saving services have waited long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n In October 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court\u00a0rejected a request to hear a case<\/a>\u00a0on the legality of establishing the Safehouse facilities.<\/p>\n In a recent report, congressional researchers highlighted\u00a0the \u201cuncertainty\u201d of the federal government\u2019s position<\/a>\u00a0on safe drug consumption sites, while pointing out that lawmakers could temporarily resolve the issue by advancing an amendment modeled after the one that has allowed medical marijuana laws to be implemented without Justice Department interference.<\/p>\n While the Philadelphia facility is being held up amid litigation, New York City opened the\u00a0first locally sanctioned harm reduction centers in the U.S.<\/a> in late 2021, and officials have already reported positive results in saving lives.<\/p>\n The Congressional Research Service (CRS) pointed out the discrepancy, stating that while \u201cDOJ actively opposed the operation of supervised consumption sites under the Trump Administration, to date the Biden Administration has not sought to invoke the [Controlled Substances Act] against such facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n The report was published days after National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow\u00a0tacitly endorsed the idea of authorizing safe consumption sites<\/a>, arguing that evidence has effectively demonstrated that the facilities can prevent overdose deaths.<\/p>\n Volkow declined to specifically say what she would do if she were president and the Trump-era lawsuit was dropped, but she said that safe consumption sites that have been the subject of research \u201chave shown that it has saved a significant [percentage of] patients from overdosing.\u201d<\/p>\n The comments represent one of the strongest positions in favor of safe consumption sites to come from a federal official, and they\u2019re all the more notable given the federal government\u2019s position in the lawsuit that\u2019s so far blocked Safehouse from providing the service.<\/p>\n That said, Rahul Gupta, the White House drug czar, recently said that the Biden administration is\u00a0reviewing broader drug policy harm reduction proposals<\/a>, including the authorization of supervised consumption sites\u2014and he went so far as to suggest possible decriminalization.<\/p>\n A study published by the American Medical Association (AMA) in July found that the recently opened New York City\u00a0facilities have decreased overdose risk<\/a>, steered people away from using in public and provided other ancillary health services to people who use currently illicit substances.<\/p>\n The National Institutes of Health (NIH)\u00a0put out a pair of requests for applications<\/a>\u00a0(RFAs) in December 2021 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 Gupta, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), previously said that it\u2019s critical 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 secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, has also 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 In 2021, Rhode Island\u2019s governor signed a bill establishing a\u00a0pilot program to allow safe consumption sites to operate<\/a>\u00a0in the state.<\/p>\n A New York Assembly committee advanced a bill in May to establish a\u00a0statewide safe consumption site program<\/a>, allowing regulators to authorize facilities where people could use currently illicit drugs in a medically supervised environment.<\/p>\n In a pair of setbacks for advocates, however, Vermont\u2019s governor vetoed a bill in June that would have simply created a working group tasked with\u00a0crafting a plan to open safe consumption sites<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the governor of California vetoed a bill<\/a>\u00a0in August to permit a pilot program for the harm reduction centers.<\/p>\n Read the federal court\u2019s mediation order in the safe drug consumption site case below:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Wisconsin Governor Calls For \u2018Meaningful Conversation\u2019 On Legalizing Marijuana In Inaugural Address<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Jernej Furman<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Federal Lawsuit Over Safe Drug Consumption Sites Heads To Mediation To \u2018Expedite\u2019 Resolution<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department and a Philadelphia nonprofit have agreed to transfer a case concerning the legality of safe drug consumption sites out of a federal district court and to mediation before a magistrate judge in order to finally reach a resolution after numerous delays. Safehouse\u2014which has spent years in litigationContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"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\/60230"}],"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=60230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60231,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60230\/revisions\/60231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Federal Lawsuit Over Safe Drug Consumption Sites Heads To Mediation To \u2018Expedite\u2019 Resolution<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"