NEW YORK – Crime-fighting New York State attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy, who will professionalize and depoliticize the office of attorney general if elected in November, today pledged to shut down New York’s supervised injection sites and redirect resources to what vulnerable New Yorkers need: treatment.
“On Day One, I will shut down the so-called ‘safe injection sites.’ There is nothing safe about injecting yourself with heroin,” Ms. Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor and Drug Enforcement Administration chief of staff, said, “The state shouldn’t be helping people get high, it should be helping people get treatment.”Ms. Komatireddy continued, “These drug use centers violate the law. I will enforce that law.”
In 2021, proponents opened two government-sanctioned supervised injection sites in New York City — in East Harlem and Washington Heights. Now, Albany Democrats are seeking to expand the sites statewide, with legislation pending in the Assembly and Senate (A4916, S7617).
Residents in East Harlem have documented increased open-air drug dealing, public drug use, and disorder in nearby subway stations since the East 126th Street facility opened. The East Harlem site sits across the street from a preschool.
“Once again, innocent New Yorkers are paying the price for a misguided pro-crime policy. Families and children walking to school, commuters using nearby public transit, businesses in the area, have to deal with this lawlessness every day. It’s outrageous.”
The sites are run by OnPoint NYC, a non-profit organization funded with taxpayer money. The organization’s tax filings show that it received in excess of $44 million in government grants since 2019, when New York Attorney General Letitia James took office. Meanwhile, drug deaths have risen 63%.
“This is all happening under Letitia James’s watch and with her support. The AG is allowing taxpayer money to fund illegal activity that endangers neighborhoods, increases crime, drug use, and disorder, and makes New Yorkers sicker, not healthier.”
The sites do not track or report how many of their users obtain treatment or recover from addiction. When San Francisco experimented with a similar site (the Tenderloin Center), overdose numbers stayed the same and fewer than 1% of visits resulted in linkages to mental health or drug treatment, leading the mayor of San Francisco to shut it down, and the governor of California to veto statewide expansion.
Ms. Komatireddy said, “These sites are illegal, unethical, and cruel. And they don’t work. Drug deaths in New York are up, not down. But taxpayers continue to fund this failed experiment. As Attorney General, I will enforce the law and shut these sites down.”
Ms. Komatireddy noted that New York State received more than $3 billion in opioid settlement funds from manufacturers and distributors. She continued her call for every dollar of that settlement money to be used to provide free in-patient drug treatment for every New Yorker who needs it.
“There are New Yorkers begging for a bed today and being told to wait three weeks. There are mothers driving their sons and daughters across state lines to find detox. The answer is not a state-sanctioned drug den, it’s treatment for everyone who needs it,”Ms. Komatireddy said.