Philadelphia has banned supervised drug injection sites in the opioid-ravaged city calling out liberal mayor Jim Kenny who tried to veto the bill.
The City Council strongly opposed the veto voting 14-1 on Thursday to override Kenny.
Council members scolded Kenny for his reluctance to make difficult decisions and held him responsible for the rising rates of overdose deaths in the embattled city.
‘This is what leadership looks like: making decisions that are not popular and that are difficult, but necessary,’ Council member Quetcy Lozada told the Philadelphia Inquirer, championing the decision.
Lozada, whose district includes Kensington and one of the largest open-air drug markets in the country, has vehemently opposed supervised drug injection sites.
The mayor should ‘remember that those overdoses that have occurred in the last eight years are his responsibility,’ Loaza added.
A record 1,413 people died of overdose last year, an 11 percent rise from the year prior, the city health officials reported earlier this week.
Philadelphia bans supervised drug injection sites in the opioid-ravaged city as councilmembers called out liberal mayor Jim Kenny who vetoed the bill
Kensington, which up until the 1950s was a bustling industrial district, is described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as ‘the poorest neighborhood in America’s poorest big city’
The mayor (pictured) should ‘remember that those overdoses that have occurred in the last eight years are his responsibility,’ said Council member Quetcy Lozada
The legislation calls into question the supervised drug consumption as the city struggles with the opioid epidemic.
The law goes into effect immediately with zoning codes updated to prohibit supervised drug consumption sites in nine of the city’s ten council districts.
The Kensington neighborhood – known as ‘ground zero’ for the city’s drug epidemic – is among the nine districts where supervised drug injection sites will be banned.
Photographs obtained by DailyMail.com capture addicts shooting up in broad daylight, hunching over in a stupor or passing out on the streets.
Drug users were seen having raw, gaping wounds in desperate need of medical attention. There were needles, syringes and garbage littered across the sidewalks.
Photographs obtained by DailyMail.com capture addicts shooting up in broad daylight , hunching over in a stupor or passing out on the streets
Many were seen having raw, gaping wounds in desperate need of medical attention. And there were needles, syringes and garbage littered across the sidewalks
West Philadelphia’s third district, represented by Democrat Jamie Gauthier, is not included, but she voted in favor of the bill, adding that she respects her colleagues to legislate zoning in their districts.
The bill requires operators to obtain special permission from the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment to open a drug injection site, a process that could take years.
Kenny pushed back, saying the bill ‘is clearly designed to ban overdose prevention centers’.
The Kenney administration has endorsed the plan for years to establish supervised drug injection sites – a facility that would be ‘saving lives, reducing public consumption, and reducing dangerous litter in other cities around the world.’
‘I am frustrated that my colleagues will not let our city lead other communities in implementing public health policies,’ Kenney said. ‘This is a public health crisis and not a question of public opinion.’
The 1,413 deaths of overdose represents an 11 percent increase from 2021, when 1,276 people fatally overdosed in Philadelphia, mostly after using illicit opioids.
Nearly 80 percent of the fatal overdoses were caused by opioids, primarily fentanyl, which has largely replaced heroin in Philadelphia.
The second-most common drug in overdose deaths was cocaine.
Black residents were impacted significantly more, with the death rate among this group rising by 20 percent in the city.
As the city grapples with the opioid epidemic, Philadelphia citizens also decried a spate of violent crime.
Shocking footage out of the City of Brotherly Love showed Fine Wine And Good Spirits smashed apart in the latest flash rob mob crime
A large number of people can be seen running towards the Lululemon store in this picture during the spree
Latest figures, which are up until last Sunday, show how there has been 302 homicides in the city so far this year.
There has also been 402 reported rapes, 58,759 cases of property crime, 3,701 cases of aggravated assaults and 1,314 shooting victims.
The city experienced two flash mob robbery incidents last week as masked looters ransacked Footlocker, Apple, Lululemon and a closed liquor stores.
Around 100 juveniles kept moving from store to store on Walnut Street in the heart of the city center until officers arrived and started making arrests on Monday night.
A day after, brutes made off with the safe and raided the lottery machine on a night when liquor stores were shut down by the authorities.
At least 18 state-run liquor stores were broken into, leading the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to close all 48 of its Philadelphia retail locations and one in suburban Cheltenham on Wednesday.
Police said they made at least 52 arrests. Burglary, theft and other counts have been filed so far against at least 30 people, all but three of them adults.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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