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Cuomo Calls For Arrests Of Public Drug Users, Alarming Harm Reduction Advocates
By
Sydney Pereira
and
Quari Alleyne
Published Sep 30, 2020
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Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
By
Sydney Pereira
and
Quari Alleyne
Published Sep 30, 2020
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Minutes after Governor Andrew Cuomo implored local governments to rethink the role of police in public safety after mass protests against racist police brutality, Cuomo said police officers should arrest people injecting drugs on city streets during a Tuesday press conference in Manhattan.
"The police have to do their jobs, and they have to arrest people who deserve to be arrested," Cuomo said Tuesday. "If somebody is openly injecting drugs on a city street, they should be arrested."
Homeless people, Cuomo added, should "be off the streets, like they should've never been in the subways."
"We need to stabilize the city now and there is a lot of anxiety," Cuomo said. "I have seen this city go through cycles. Most of the younger guys—you’ve only seen an upcycle. You don’t remember what the city was like because you weren’t born. In the 60s, when it was really bad, and the '70s."
The governor's remarks were markedly different from his rhetoric earlier in the briefing, when he questioned why an armed police officer would be the responding authority during 911 calls regarding substance abuse or mental health issues. Cuomo made the remarks as he introduced a five-point plan to stabilize NYC, which had few details besides listing off NYC's cascading crises, which included gun violence, cleanliness, and the economy.
Overdose prevention advocates were dismayed Cuomo's directive to crack down on people using drugs in public.
The vice president of public policy advocacy at the Legal Action Center, Tracie Gardner, called it a "step backwards."
"We're supposed to be the leader in responding to people who use drugs," said Gardner, who worked for the Cuomo administration for three years. "This is not leadership."
The drug policy coordinator for Vocal-NY, Jasmine Budnella, said the comments were "inflammatory" and "reminiscent of the drug war."
"He cited that New York City is reminding him of the '70s and then uses the same kind of rhetoric that Nixon and the Reagan administration, as well as many afterward, used to address substance use, that then catapulted us into mass incarceration, and prohibitionist policies, [which] is the reason we have the overdose crisis today," Budnella said.
Meanwhile, she added, syringe exchange programs across the state have been hanging by a thread because the state has withheld contract payments due to the economic fallout from coronavirus.
"I am appalled that he would even say those words while there are thousands of us grieving across the state who have lost people during this pandemic to an overdose and that is what his solution is," Budnella said.
Harm reduction advocates noted Cuomo has had the option to approve overdose prevention centers—sometimes called safe injection sites or safe consumption facilities—to create an alternative to the street or parks. Mayor Bill de Blasio put forth a plan to open four of these sites, which activists have pushed for for years.
"Cuomo has the power to greenlight overdose prevention centers in New York and has ignored this option for years," said the medical director for the Harm Reduction Coalition, Dr. Kimberly Sue.
The facilities, if the governor approves them, would provide a place for people who use drugs to use them in spaces more accessible to social services and with needles free of potential diseases like HIV or Hepatitis C.
"These would be spaces where people can use drugs safely indoors with peer or medical supervision who could prevent fatal overdoses as well as prevent harms related to the criminalization of use," Sue said.
In Philadelphia, a federal judge ruled such sites do not violate federal drug laws, and the nonprofit Safehouse planned to open the first injection site in the country. This summer, in the wake of protests in response to Minneapolis police killing George Floyd, the same judge paused the plans, granting the federal Justice Department's request to issue a stay on his previous decision.
"While we fully support efforts to reduce the harms caused by the opioid epidemic, we are also monitoring the ongoing litigation in Philadelphia over supervised injection facilities and considering the impact it could have on efforts to launch similar facilities here," state health department spokesperson Jonah Bruno said. State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said last year he was conducting his own review of programs elsewhere.
Lawmakers said Cuomo's comments on Tuesday run contrary to efforts to destigmatize addiction, and called on him to support their legislation to establish a safe consumption services program.
"Every time we talk about using police to address substance use disorder, we undermine decades of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, extended by advocates, medical experts, some lawmakers to destigmatize addiction," said Upper West Side Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal. "This is like the old tropes—this perpetuating stigma and shame about a disease."
"When he says something like this, and particularly when everybody’s paying attention to him during COVID, it is ... irresponsible for the governor to take on dehumanizing tone that NIMBY folks have about individuals who use drugs," Bronx State Senator Gustavo Rivera said. "It's the same type of approach that people use towards homeless individuals, as if though they’re not people."
In 2018, 1,444 people died of unintentional overdose, mostly from opioids, in NYC. Across the state, there has been a 200 percent increase in opioid overdose deaths between 2000 and 2017. Rosenthal said the full picture of overdoses in New York State since the COVID-19 pandemic began is unknown, but an analysis by the NY Times suggests overdose deaths have risen nationwide.
"Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away," Rosenthal said. "It just drops it underground, and that ties what the Governor said earlier: 'Arrest them.' Nobody in the field thinks arresting someone who uses drugs is the right approach. I doubt his departments think that also."
Earlier on Tuesday, when presented with the same question, de Blasio said arrest is not an appropriate response.
"We've long had an understanding in this city that God forbid someone is addicted, that you don't arrest your way out of addiction," de Blasio said.
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COVID-19
coronavirus
drug use
overdoses
safe injection sites
safe injection facilities
Sydney Pereira
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