By Guy Page
Burlington’s planned Overdose Prevention Center will move forward without supervised consumption of illegal drugs in its initial phase, according to a status update circulated this week by Building Burlington’s Future, a local advocacy group that has been meeting with city and state officials.
$1.1 million in state funding for the pilot safe injection site project was approved by the 2024 Vermont Legislature, over the veto of Gov. Phil Scott.
In a lengthy Dec. 20 email to supporters, BBF said the city has concluded that allowing on-site, supervised consumption of controlled substances would require more preparation, staffing capacity, and community engagement than is currently feasible.
As a result, supervised drug use will not be part of the center’s first phase.
Instead, the initial focus will be on treatment, stabilization, and connecting people struggling with substance use disorder to care and recovery services.
“The City has determined that supervised consumption isn’t part of the first phase of this project,” BBF wrote, describing the approach as a way to move forward with services that can be implemented more quickly while broader questions remain unresolved.
The update comes amid ongoing debate in Burlington over how to respond to drug use, overdoses, and public safety concerns in the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. Proposals for supervised consumption sites — sometimes referred to as “safe injection sites” — have drawn sharp opposition from some residents and lawmakers, even as harm-reduction advocates argue they can save lives.
BBF said it has spent recent weeks meeting with the mayor’s office and the governor’s team, sharing observations “from the ground” and urging closer alignment between city and state strategies. The group pointed to recent developments such as the launch of the Accountability Court and improved coordination among local and state partners as signs that collaboration is beginning to take shape.
While supervised consumption is off the table for now, other major decisions remain unresolved. The location of the overdose prevention center has not yet been announced, and the full range of services it may eventually offer is still under discussion.
BBF said the city plans additional opportunities for public engagement as details are finalized and encouraged residents to follow city updates or contact city staff for more information.
The group characterized its role as pushing for “practical steps that make our community safer” while expanding access to treatment and recovery, stressing that its work is focused on policy outcomes rather than partisan politics.
City officials have not yet released a formal timeline for opening the center, but BBF’s update signals that Burlington intends to proceed with a model centered on treatment and connections to care — without supervised drug consumption — at least in its opening phase.
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Categories: Burlington
Can a Soylent Green staging area be far behind? Or will site this double as one?
You could have done this in a van parked down by the river.
You win!!!!
Bait & switch! Park a Sheriff’s unit outside the door and grab them before they go in, ya know for safety reasons because there is no one there to monitor them!
My first thought was OMG! Then I reminded myself “it’s Burlington”! Then they will ask for more assistance from Law enforcement.
You people in Burlington need to do your Christmas shopping up in St. Albans Town where you will not have to trip over used needles and deal with panhandlers.
I’m a little confused here. They got permission to have this center by convincing everyone that there would be staff there to maintain order and supervise drug use. Now, if I am reading this correct, they are not going to have supervision there. Not anyone? Or just not medical staff? I cannot imagine anyone that is pushing this center wanting it near where they live knowing that it is full of drug users…using with no one there to monitor what else might be going on. Are they supposed to use their drugs and then just wander off into he streets? Will they hang out there, unsupervised, for the entire day? Put some chairs and benches out front? Spend the night? And I have to ask…who in their right mind would want a job being responsible for a clinic full of drug users and trying to maintain any kind of order? Perhaps one of the Legislators who approved this would like to volunteer?
So, a site without supervision should make it so much more appealing to the public and hence everyone will now be competing over whose neighborhood will get to play host. The whole point of marketing this to the public was as a place where supervision would provide rapid response in case of overdoses. The proponents are still playing the “harm reduction” card though by stating their intention to “connect people struggling with substance use disorder to care and recovery services”, which sounds like it will consist of a kiosk or a stack of pamphlets on a table. But now comes the fun with the little detail of deciding where will it be located. $10+ million in the hole, and Mayor Emma-Hyphen is dead set on making her dream project materialize, but with a somewhat cheaper version in the interest of fiscal restraint. Rock on, BTV…
Reminiscent of the 19th century opium dens.
“You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth — for there is no truth about him”. JOHN 8:44.
“The Spirit clearly professes that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” TIMOTHY 4:1
Note the pic’s backdrop: “This Site Saves Lives” (!!!!!!!!????) NOTHING could be further from the truth, yet the Communists & atheists & evildoers are proclaiming that the needle & the poison within will “save” you.
And now they shall begin the procession – the sick, the abandoned, the violent, the dying, and the soon-to-be-murdered through their own hand – as the vile who created this revel in their victory in enabling them.
This site is not just immoral. It is illegal. And all of you who voted for them, your “representatives”, voted for this, this grisly testament to a society gone astray wherein God was abandoned; a place where babies & all manner of innocents are murdered at the very altar of the occult and where places of worship were closed. A place where all could attest beyond any doubt that good had been named as evil, and evil, somehow, as good.
When looking at all the drug related deaths (overdoses and killings) in Vermont each year, I feel that the Police and the coroner will be spending a lot of time there. I pray that there are no families living too close.
What could possibly go wrong?
I think this is opening up the state and Burlington to a lot of liability claims.
The LAST thing an addict needs is to be enabled. Sites like these do not help recovery.
They are offering the reassuring hand of government approval…if they want to call this “harm reduction”, then they have opened another window into the mind of the leftist pathology.
Let me get this straight, we give permits for business in our state to do illegal drugs that ruin your life and kill you?
But we don’t make it easy to build modest homes?
We take 10 years in court to allow Costco to pump gas at a cheaper price for Vermonters……
But we give easy access for illegal drug use that is ruining families and live across the state, that is leading Vermont to have one of the highest per capita of addicted births! New born babies addicted to crack cocaine and heroin!!!!!!!
Wtf???
How did this make it through ACT 250???????
Easy, give the Act 250 coordinator $250.00.
What town has drug use by right?
What zoning plan talks about “safe” drug use, drug dens allowed in zoning?
Can you see how zoning is used against the good people of Vermont to do normal things and make it easy for those in big government to feather their own nests??????
What town would vote for, let’s have a drug den in our town? They have essentially made it a use by right in Vermont, because they allow it without any penalties what so ever, no zoning violation, no bail, no jail, instead we arrest cops for doing their job and tell them they were profiling!
These people are insanely evil.
Good point. When these druggies leave the place, they are subject to a different set of laws, such as DUI Drugs.
Why is the word ‘safe’ even in the title of this plan?
This is not safe for anyone. Not the users , not the people working at the location , not the citizens of Burlington , etc., etc., etc.,
What a heart breaking waste of money.
Does Vermont know what LOVE is?
This is a serious question.
And I don’t think we do know what love is, in fact I think we are teaching things in the name of love that are most certainly NOT love.
Are you showing love by helping an addict, giving him a “ safe place” to do drugs?
Are you showing love to your children by suggesting that sex before marriage is a sign of love?
How about educating children in all sorts of sexual activity in the name of love, when truly we are teaching them lust, to be slaves of sexual desires?
Is it teaching love to have porn for free, not tax? To have porn showing interfamial sex? Is this Love???
Is it love when you allow people to steal from others with no consequence? How is this loving your neighbor????
How can you claim to be a government that cares for its citizens, when after the citizens give you 9 billion dollars, you claim you don’t have enough money or ideas ( you just need more money!) to keep people from freezing and starving to death? You spent all your 9 billion dollars and you don’t have enough money for a sandwich?????
We are clearly NOT under a spirit that brings Love, Joy and Peace, that is for sure!
This is perhaps a time to humble ourselves and look for a bette way. God there has to be a better way to live our lives, and there is! God has a better plan. Jesus Christ is the way, appropriately this time of year it would be to bring Jesus Christ into our Christmas, into our lives.
Vermont needs to know and understand love, we are wildly off course, we need to change direction.
What a great name for an organization facilitating drug use: Building Burlington’s Future!
And as I recall, the fact that use would be supervised was a major selling point in getting this mistake approved by the legislature. But, of course, that was then….
The “leadership” that is okaying this sort of thing is literally defecating all over the people of this state. They intend to subjugate you. Get it? They will be in power with safety and money. They will cause WCAX and Facebook to make you feel ridiculed if you question their decision: “What about the poor ethnic kids !!!” they will say. And they will make you pay for your own demise with tax after increased tax. You are powerless, after all, and they are the wise and educated ones who know what is best. The experts.
Just wait until the facility is open then contact the federal government to step in. Arrest the users and dealers and prosecute the people responsible for running the facility.
GOD willing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank God I’m moving south
Are you selling your home? Please make sure to transfer it to a deserving local family at a reasonable price. Too many affluent flatlanders scooping up homes with cash offers!
Why do I have a feeling that this would be the perfect hangout for the Vermont version of Nick Reiner?
$1.1 million in state funding for the pilot safe injection site project…. and yet they want to raise property tax
It’s worse. 1.1 Million to continue doing, what they’ve been doing.
Put a dome over Burlington.