Progressive activists and elected officials criticised California Governor Gavin Newsom after his decision to veto legislation to create safe drug injection sites in three major cities — with some arguing that he had let his political ambitions take precedence over keeping his constituents safe.
“Today, California lost a huge opportunity to address one of our most deadly problems: The dramatic escalation of drug overdose deaths,” State Sen Scott Wiener of San Francisco, the bill’s author, wrote in a statement. “By rejecting a proven and extensively studied strategy to save lives and get people into treatment, this veto sends a powerful negative message that California is not committed to harm reduction.”
Mr Wiener, who serves as chair of the Senate’s Housing Committee, was not the only member of Mr Newsom’s party to express dismay with the governor’s decision.
The bill passed by the California legislature would have launched pilot programmes in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles in which drug use would be legalised in specific, hygenic areas in which people would have access to clean needles and supplies as well as medical care.
The aim of the proposal, which was endorsed by a broad coalition of healthcare professionals, academics, and local elected officials, was to cut down on drug overdose deaths in California as well as to alliviate pressure on the emergency healthcare infrastructure and reduce public drug consumption.
Mr Newsom said that he would consider supporting a smaller pilot programme and allowed that the policy could work well. But he said trying it now wasn’t worth the risk.
“It is possible that these sites would help improve the safety and health of our urban areas, but if done without a strong plan, they could work against this purpose,” Mr Newsom wrote in his veto letter. “These unintended consequences in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland cannot be taken lightly. Worsening drug consumption challenges in these areas is not a risk we can take.”
Other observers read different motivations behind Mr Newsom’s veto.
“It’s never been about the research,” Sheila Vakharia, a deputy director in the Department of Research and Academic Engagement at the Drug Policy Alliance wrote in a tweet. “It’s never been about saving lives. It’s always been about politics. And cowardice. And a high tolerance for death.”
The Alliance released a statement saying in part that it was “heartbroken that Governor Newsom has put his own political ambitions ahead of saving thousands of lives and vetoed this critical legislation.”
In his statement, Mr Wiener noted that California is not a leader in the campaign to set up safe drug consumption sites: New York City under the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams has set up a number of sites, while Rhode Island has passed a law authorising them. Massachusettes is considering a similar law.
Outside of the US, the practice is much more widespread. The Netherlands first opened safe drug consupmtion sites in the 1970s and has numerous sites today, as do a number of other European countries like Spain and Switzerland. Canada also has a number of safe consumption sites.
Safe consumption sites have been the subject of academic research for decades as well, with a number of studies pointing to their positive impacts both for the safety drug users as well as the public more broadly.
The policy has its detractors, too, particularly among those who believe that a measure of state tolerance for drug use will further encourage the practice. Mr Newsom’s predecessor, former Governor Jerry Brown, vetoed a similar proposal when he was in office, and Republicans in the state legislature praised Mr Newsom’s decision on Tuesday.
But Mr Newsom’s opposition to the policy appears to be a new development. When he was first running for governor in 2018, Mr Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was “very, very open” to the idea.
Now, however, Mr Newsom is widely thought to be tending to presidential ambitions — and potentially weighing decisions like this one in light of an impending national campaign.
Mr Wiener and the bill’s supporters in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles, meanwhile, are not giving up on the proposal.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said that he supports a non-profit moving forward with a safe consumpion site in the city regardless of Mr Newsom’s veto in a model similar to the one that New York is using. Mr Wiener tweeted that he too supports San Francisco taking matters into its own hands.
