PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Philadelphia issued a final ruling Tuesday that paves the way for a nonprofit group to open a supervised injection site to combat the city’s opioid epidemic.
U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh found that the Safehouse group’s plan doesn’t violate federal drug laws because the intent is to reduce drug use, not perpetuate it.
“We are grateful that the court has once again found that saving lives is not a crime,” Safehouse board member Ronda Goldfein said Tuesday.
U.S. Attorney William McSwain vowed to keep fighting the plan and appeal the ruling to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“What Safehouse proposes is a radical experiment that would invite thousands of people onto its property for the purpose of injecting illegal drugs,” he said Tuesday.
Goldfein has said she hopes local authorities would resist McSwain’s threat to crack down on clients using the facility. The opening has been on hold while McSwain argues that the plan violates a 1980s-era drug law known as the “crackhouse statute.” Both the mayor and the city’s district attorney support the facility.
There were more than 1,100 overdose deaths in Philadelphia in 2018.
