PHILADELPHIA _ U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams said Saturday that the Trump administration has made its position on safe injection sites clear: Despite Philadelphia's city's efforts to sanction a site where people can use drugs under medical supervision to prevent overdoses, federal officials believe the measure would violate federal law.
Instead, Adams said, other harm-reduction measures that have been endorsed by the federal government, like needle exchanges, should be considered. Such exchanges have been shown to reduce the spread of blood-borne infections like HIV and hepatitis C.
"I was reading in the newspaper that Philly has only one syringe service program," Adams said. "I think there's a lot we can do to optimize evidence-based solutions that are already out there and available."
Needle exchanges themselves are still controversial in some circles. They remain illegal in Pennsylvania.
Safe injection sites have been in place in countries like Canada and Germany for decades. A study commissioned by city officials this year estimated that a single site in Philadelphia would save 25 to 75 lives a year and millions of dollars in hospital costs and public funds, while reducing public injection of drugs and other neighborhood problems in a city where 1,217 people died of overdoses last year ��the highest death rate in any major city in the country.
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said last month that the city should expect legal action if it tries to open an injection site.
It's unclear whether that would mean civil or criminal action, and local legal experts have said the city can argue that safe injection sites are a lifesaving measure amid an opioid crisis that has resisted traditional attempts to curb overdose deaths.
Adams, whose brother is addicted to opioids, was in Philadelphia Saturday to participate in a march to combat stigma against drug addiction.
He said he chose to march in Philadelphia_ alongside thousands of others _ because of the toll the opioid crisis has taken on the city.
"There's nowhere where things are as bad or where there's as much hope as in Philadelphia," Adams said. He said he wanted to show that recovery from addiction is possible and that the federal government needs to work to increase access to treatment and dispel stigma.
And he praised housing-first programs in Philadelphia that offer people with addiction homes with no requirement for sobriety.
"Housing is health," he said. "The opioid epidemic is a tragedy, but it's also an opportunity for us to help folks understand that health is about housing, it's about jobs, it's about everything that's going on in your community and your environment. If we don't create healthy and well communities, we're just going to play whack-a-mole."
