Philadelphia Mother Accuses Officials of Being 'Sneaks' About Opening Nation's First Drug Injection Site

Nick Kangadis | February 27, 2020
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Sometimes, when the situation deserves actual public outrage, it’s a good feeling to see citizens castigate career politicians for acting without consulting said public. Let’s face it, politicians deserve it more than most, especially former politicians who continue to attempt to exert their power while being unelected.

Recently, a non-profit organization called Safehouse — which is chaired by former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (D) — got the nation’s first supervised drug injection site approved by a federal judge on Wednesday. The judge ruled that the site “would not violate a federal drug law known commonly as ‘crack house statute,’” according to WPVI-TV.

According to USLegal.com, "Crack house statute is a federal statute codified in 21 USC § 856 which makes it a felony to knowingly open, lease, rent, use, or maintain any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance."

Local residents are furious over the decision and are not holding back their feelings over the location of the site, which is reportedly supposed to be in South Philadelphia. WPVI-TV reported that one resident said “we were ambushed.”

A local mother made her feelings known to Rendell and other Safehouse officials.

“Are you going to clean our outside?” the mother asked furiously. “I don’t care about inside. I care about needles outside. I care about bags outside. I care about what my children have to see, at six and 10 years old, that I have to explain hardened drug addiction. This is unacceptable, and you [Rendell] were a sneak about it.”

The video is going viral on Twitter. Check it out below:

Even other politicians took Rendell, who hasn’t been an elected official since 2011, to task for the lack of communication with local communities concerning the injection site.

“You know the only reason why you did this is cause you wanted Philadelphia to be the first site in the country to be a safe injection site,” Councilmember for District 1 Mark Squilla said directly to Rendell and the other officials.

Here’s video of Squilla calling them out:

According to Safehouse’s website, their mission “is to save lives by providing a range of overdose prevention services.”

Philadelphia definitely needs some kind of change considering, as WPVI-TV reported, that Philadelphia “has the highest opioid death rate of any large U.S. city.”

Supposedly, the safe injection site is supposed to prevent overdoses by allowing users to shoot up in front of a doctor and other supervisors who could supply antidotes should an overdose occur.

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