Background: What Is Harm Reduction?
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The idea: While in an ideal world, no one would use dangerous and potentially deadly drugs, many people do. So it’s better to give these people a space where they can use drugs with some sort of supervision. It’s a harm reduction approach.
Brown was unreceptive to this idea, describing it as “enabling illegal drug use.” But he also cited another concern: “[A]lthough this bill creates immunity under state law, it can’t create such immunity under federal law. In fact, the United States Attorney General has already threatened prosecution and it would be irresponsible to expose local officials and health care professionals to potential federal criminal charges.”
Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Trump administration — particularly the US Department of Justice — has threatened states and cities looking to open supervised consumption sites. Rosenstein recently published an op-ed in the New York Times criticizing the sites; he also issued a warning to city officials and potential beneficiaries of supervised consumption sites on the NPR member station WHYY in Philadelphia.
“It remains illegal under federal law,” Rosenstein said. “And people engaged in that activity remain vulnerable to civil and criminal enforcement.”
To defend its position, the Justice Department has cited a law originally meant to stop crack houses, noting, “It is a crime, not only to use illicit narcotics, but to manage and maintain sites on which such drugs are used and distributed.”
This threat appears to have deterred Brown from allowing supervised consumption sites in his own state, citing the possibility of federal prosecution. In other words, the threat is working.
