Pennsylvania incoming governor Josh Shapiro said Tuesday that he remains opposed to efforts to open a place in Philadelphia where people with addiction can use drugs under medical supervision, a day after the federal government asked for more time to respond to a lawsuit over a proposed supervised injection site in the city.
Shapiro, who spoke at the Bloomberg American Health Summit, told an audience at the Loews Hotel that he was committed to working on public health issues like violence, the environment and drug addiction. Philadelphia has one of the worst big-city overdose crises in the country: a record 1,276 people died of overdoses in Philadelphia in 2021.
Asked by The Inquirer after his public remarks about his views on supervised injection sites, he said that he has been “clear in my opposition to them.”
Shapiro has been critical of the sites — where people using drugs can be revived if they overdose — in his years as Pennsylvania attorney general, during which Philadelphia officials announced that they would support, but not fund, such a site.
In 2018, weeks after that announcement, he said he believed the sites were illegal and that there was “no safe way to inject yourself with this type of poison.”
A year later, then-U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain sued Safehouse, the Philadelphia nonprofit attempting to open a site, in federal court, arguing that it violated a federal law prohibiting the establishment of a location for the use of drugs. A federal judge disagreed, accepting Safehouse’s argument that its purpose is to save lives, not facilitate drug use. But an appeals court eventually struck down the decision.
Now, a countersuit filed by Safehouse is working its way through the courts, asking the government to rule on several claims not addressed in the original rulings, including one that Safehouse officials have a religious right to save lives amid the overdose crisis.
The U.S. Department of Justice, now under a Democratic president, has signaled that it may be more open to the idea. Since February, government lawyers and Safehouse have been negotiating the legal questions around opening a site in Philadelphia.
But on Monday, the government asked for another extension before responding to Safehouse’s lawsuit, saying it needed more time to evaluate the concept. The response disappointed advocates who had hoped for a more detailed timeline on the government’s evaluation. Safehouse officials on Tuesday afternoon filed a motion asking the court to instead order the government to respond within 14 days.
“Safehouse and those that need its life-saving services have waited long enough,” the motion read.
Advocates urge timely action
Advocates from outside the city also said time is of the essence in approving sites around the country. Two supervised injection sites are operating in New York City, while Rhode Island’s legislature legalized sites early this year and is preparing plans to open one soon.
Philadelphia’s legal fight was discussed Tuesday at the Bloomberg conference by a panel moderated by Inquirer reporter Aubrey Whelan.
During the panel discussion, Brandon Marshall, a professor of epidemiology at Brown University and an adviser to a Rhode Island state task force on overdose prevention, said he was dismayed at the delay in the Safehouse case.
“These delays are harmful. Every overdose death is preventable,” he said.
Shapiro focused on other approaches to combating the opioid epidemic during his speech at the Bloomberg-sponsored gathering of national health leaders. During his term as attorney general, for example, his office arrested 8,200 drug dealers, he said.
With 15 Pennsylvanians dying daily from opioid-related overdoses, he added that “drug addiction is a disease, not a crime, and it needs to be treated that way.”
Shapiro also highlighted the settlement he reached with pharmaceutical companies that played a significant role in fueling the opioid crisis.
The industry will pay $28 billion to states, with $1 billion coming to Pennsylvania, he said. All of that must be spent on treatment and related services, Shapiro said. (Marshall said during the later panel that Rhode Island will fund its supervised injection sites with money from its own opioid settlement.)
”This is a moment when we have real resources to be able to address the need, to be able to save lives, to be able to be compassionate,” Shapiro said.
Staff writer Jason Laughlin contributed to this article.
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