Justice Dept. signals it may allow safe injection sites
A year after winning a major court battle against the opening of so-called safe injection sites — safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics with protections against fatal overdoses — the Justice Department is signaling it might be open to allowing them.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, the Justice Department said it is “evaluating” such facilities and talking to regulators about “appropriate guardrails.”
The position is a drastic change from its stance in the Trump administration, when prosecutors fought vigorously against a plan to open a safe consumption site in Philadelphia. The Justice Department won a lawsuit last year, when a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled that opening such a facility would violate a 1980s-era drug law, aimed at “crackhouses,” which bans operating a place for taking illegal drugs. The Supreme Court declined in October to take the case.