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No less than two main West Coast cities are rethinking their so-called hurt discount insurance policies which have sought to deal with dependancy, signaling that these areas are overhauling their technique to fight the drug disaster as dependancy challenges persist.
Whereas cities together with San Francisco and Seattle have beforehand adopted insurance policies to distribute “safer” drug provides like clear foil and pipes that may very well be used to smoke fentanyl or different substances, these cities are actually implementing a brand new method that imposes new limitations on the distribution of those provides.
Seattle’s Metropolis Council handed its 2026 finances in November and included a provision that may “preclude any Metropolis help for the acquisition or distribution of provides for the consumption of unlawful medicine, except needles.”
The availability was championed by Metropolis Council Member Sara Nelson, who stated that whereas she helps needle trade applications as a result of they scale back the unfold of illnesses like HIV and Hepatitis C, she stated she doesn’t see the profit in utilizing public assets to “assist individuals get excessive” by distributing sure drug provides.
A number of packages containing medicine, presumably laced with fentanyl, displayed on a mattress. (U.S. District Courtroom of Rhode Island)
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“I fail to notice, nonetheless, the hurt that’s being diminished by distributing provides akin to pipes and foil which might be used to eat lethal medicine like meth and fentanyl,” Nelson stated throughout a Nov. 16 finances committee assembly. “To me, it feels prefer it’s giving a loaded gun to any person who’s suicidal.”
Seattle isn’t the one metropolis taking such steps to reduce the way it distributes “secure” drug provides to its group.
Earlier in 2025, San Francisco unveiled a brand new coverage that will require people to obtain remedy counseling — or be linked with such companies to obtain remedy choices — earlier than receiving any drug use provides from town or city-funded applications. Moreover, the brand new coverage barred offering these provides in public areas.
San Francisco unveiled a brand new coverage that will require people to obtain remedy counseling earlier than receiving any drug use provides from town or city-funded applications. (Jeff Chiu, File/The Related Press )
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The coverage went into impact April 30, and utilized to any city-funded public well being program that supplied drug use provides like sterile syringes and smoking kits.
“We will now not settle for the fact of two individuals dying a day from overdose. The established order has failed to make sure the well being and security of our complete group, in addition to these within the throes of dependancy. Fentanyl has modified the sport, and we’ve been counting on methods that preceded this new drug epidemic, which ends immediately,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated in a press release in April. “Our new coverage will join people to remedy shortly, and that could be a huge step towards reclaiming our public areas.”
Seattle’s Metropolis Council elections and San Francisco’s mayoral races are formally nonpartisan. Nevertheless, each cities have strongly backed Democrats in state and native elections.
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In the meantime, these drug coverage modifications aren’t common with proponents of “hurt discount” insurance policies. For instance, Laura Guzman, govt director of the Nationwide Hurt Discount Coalition, stated there will not be sufficient assets to adjust to San Francisco’s new rule.
“It is mandating or placing as a situation for individuals to obtain life-saving provides, to truly have lengthy conversations about remedy that will not be accessible,” Guzman stated in April, in accordance with CBS Information. “Individuals who know within the subject — researchers, docs — are saying this isn’t good coverage. We’re truly going towards the grain as a result of what we’re making an attempt to do is have the notion that there isn’t any drug use on the streets. However it’s not public well being, it is not science-based. It is precisely the alternative of what we all know works.”
The Seattle skyline is pictured from a Washington State Ferry in Seattle, Washington. (Jason Redmond/Reuters )
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Though each Washington’s King County, which incorporates Seattle, and San Francisco had fewer drug overdose deaths in 2024 than in 2023, the numbers for each cities are greater compared to 2019 earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
For instance, 635 individuals died on account of unintended drug overdoses in 2024 in San Francisco — down from the 810 that died in 2023, however up from the 441 that died in 2019, in accordance with the San Francisco Workplace of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Drug overdose deaths are additionally down nationwide. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reported in February an almost 24% decline in drug overdose deaths in fiscal yr 2024, compared to the earlier fiscal yr.
In the meantime, the Trump administration has taken an aggressive method to fight the inflow of medication into the U.S. For instance, President Donald Trump signed an govt order in December designating illicit fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.”
