USA - Measure to Bar Federal Funds for Cities With Safe Injection Sites Passes Senate

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Harm Reduction: Measure to Bar Federal Funds for Cities With Safe Injection Sites Passes Senate

2 November 2007
StopTheDrugWar.org

An amendment to a Senate appropriations bill that would bar cities that open safe injection sites from receiving federal education, health, and labor funding was adopted by the Senate last week. The bill is now in conference committee, where drug reform activists are working to kill it.

Sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) in apparent reaction to talk about such a facility in San Francisco, the amendment to the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education annual appropriation bill would cut off funding from those departments to any city that opens a safe injection site.

At least 27 cities in eight European countries, as well as Vancouver, Canada, and Sydney, Australia, are operating safe injection sites. They have been shown to reduce needle-sharing and the rate of new HIV and Hep C infections among injection drug users without causing increases in drug use or criminality.

No American locality has so far tried to establish such a facility. But in San Francisco, discussions are underway .

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/...inection_sites