PHILADELPHIA — A federal appellate court has reversed a judge's ruling that cleared the way for the nation's first supervised injection site to open in Philadelphia, calling the plan a clear violation of federal law.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit lauded the idea proposed by local nonprofit Safehouse: To stem high rates of overdose deaths by creating a safe location where staff could medically supervise people using drugs.
But, said Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas writing for the panel: "Congress has made it a crime to open a property to others to use drugs. And that is what Safehouse will do."
Circuit Judge Jane Richards Roth dissented, arguing that Safehouse's intended purpose was not what Congress had attempted to ban when it passed the law known colloquially as the "crack-house statute," which prohibits the opening of a site for drug use.
The case will now return to U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh, who issued the 2019 landmark decision that addressed for the first time whether such sites would run afoul of the law.
"No credible argument can be made that facilities such as safe injection sites were in the contemplation of Congress either when it adopted [the crack-house statute]," he wrote at the time.
After a failed attempt by Safehouse to open after that ruling, the judge later stayed his order until the Third Circuit could weigh in, citing controversy around the decision along with the coronavirus pandemic and racial injustice protests as a reason to wait until the higher court had a chance to review.
