CITY HALL \u2014 Mayor Eric Adams announced the second phase of his plan to address New Yorkers mental health problems on Thursday, and a key prong is bringing more safe-injections sites to the five boroughs.
\nThat doesn\u2019t sit well with at least two local elected officials who vowed to oppose any of the sites, which the city calls overdose prevention centers, on Staten Island.
\nDemocratic District Attorney Michael McMahon, who opposed the sites since Mayor Bill de Blasio opened two in Manhattan in 2021, reiterated his objection to the idea, and referenced his own office\u2019s work to address overdoses on the Island.
\n\u201cThese centers cause far more harm than good,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cThe simple fact is that two safe injection sites have existed in New York City for the past year, and in that time fatal overdoses have reached new highs and the quality of life for residents who live near these centers has reached new lows.\u201d
\n\u201cOpening more of these centers under the guise of saving lives does a disservice to the life-saving work being done by heroes on the ground here on Staten Island, who over the past eight years have diverted tens of thousands of struggling New Yorkers out of the criminal justice system and into life-saving treatment through innovative programming duplicated across the city, nation, and recognized in the White House\u2019s National Drug Control Strategy Report,\u201d he continued.
\nEfforts to address overdoses around the city, whether on the part of City Hall or McMahon\u2019s office, have largely been failures, particularly since the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
\nA January report from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shared provisional overdose fatality data that showed deaths in 2021 rose sharply from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic fueled in large part by the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
\nThere were 2,668 overdose deaths across the five boroughs in 2021, a 27% increase from the year before when there were 2,103 fatalities, and a 78% rise from 2019\u2032s tally. Staten Island\u2019s death toll reached 146 in 2021 \u2014 up from a total of 133 in 2020, according to the Health Department.
\nDespite those numbers, people working in drug treatment, and the government officials who support them have long argued that without their services, drug overdoses would be claiming the lives of even more people.
\nAdams said during a City Hall press conference on the second phase of his mental health plan that he would hope to work with McMahon to help bring an overdose prevention to Staten Island, which, along with the Bronx, has long been considered a hot spot for the nation\u2019s drug crisis.
\n\u201cI think [McMahon] is an excellent district attorney. We are going to sit down with him. We are going to show him the numbers. We are going to bring him to see what we\u2019re doing in Harlem, and other [overdose prevention centers],\u201d Adams said. \u201cThe issue of overdoses is a real issue on Staten Island and [McMahon] and I have a great relationship and I\u2019m going to continue to show why we believe this is the best way forward.\u201d
\nWhile the mayor may be ready to evangelize the benefits of overdose prevention centers, he\u2019ll have a long way to go on Staten Island where elected officials besides McMahon have also been consistent opponents, and the law has historically been on their side.
\nRep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island\/South Brooklyn) issued a statement Thursday during the mayor\u2019s press conference blasting his proposal, and referencing a New York Daily News report from January that shared neighbors\u2019 ongoing issues with the Harlem overdose prevention center, which is one of two with the other in Washington Heights.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a little over one year since the city opened these illegal supervised injection sites and not only has the quality of life in these neighborhoods severely declined, but overdose deaths in our city are continuing to climb to record levels,\u201d she said. \u201cWe warned the city about the unintended consequences last year and it\u2019s disturbing that Mayor Adams remains complicit with this illegal scheme that\u2019s only encouraging illegal drug use, leaving residents fearful and placing them in harm\u2019s way.\u201d
\nWhile a member of the New York Assembly, Malliotakis obtained a commitment in 2018 from President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of Justice (DOJ) to take legal action if the city opened a safe injection site, as it had done in other localities, including Philadelphia.
\nFederal courts sided with the DOJ in those cases pointing to a part of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that lawmakers created as a way to target \u201ccrackhouses,\u201d but effectively outlaw safe injection sites as well.
\nAdams said there\u2019s still \u201csome clarity that\u2019s needed in the legalities\u201d regarding the safe injection sites, and no legal actions have been taken against the two sites operating in Manhattan, which don\u2019t receive public dollars.
\nWhen de Blasio announced the two sites at the end of his term, he said that community buy-in, including that of district attorneys, was key to getting the sites up and running.
\nMcMahon\u2019s office did not answer a pair of follow-up questions as to whether he would take legal action against any safe injection sites on the Island, but the district attorney said he has expressed his \u201ctotal opposition\u201d to Adams\u2019 administration regarding the sites.
\nHe added that he\u2019s received \u201cno indication\u201d that such a site will be opened on Staten Island, but Adams said the city plans to move forward with the support of state officials.
\n\u201cOur goal is to have the governor, her team, her staff see what we\u2019re doing, so that we can get the support that we need,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n
Silive<\/p>\n
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