By Guy Page
The Vermont House voted 96 yes, 35 no, and 18 absent Thursday afternoon on H72, harm-reduction criminal justice response to drug use bill, a/k/a safe injection sites.
The bill now goes to third and final reading today, and (if approved) will go to the Senate. It was was introduced last year by Rep. Taylor Small (D/P – Winooski).
A handful of jurisdictions, including New York City, and Rhode Island, have legalized safe injection sites where illegal drug use is not an arrestable offense. The centers provide overdose prevention and counseling services.
The bill elicited comments of both support and opposition on the floor of the House.
“The State of Vermont does not have the substance abuse contingency of care infrastructure in place to support this harm reduction model,” Republican Rep. Eric Maguire of Rutland said.
Rep. Art Peterson, a Clarendon Republican, explained his vote as follows: “Passage of H.72 will make Vermont drug dealers very happy.”
Rep. Barbara Rachelson (D) of Burlington voted yes and explained thusly: Research shows that overdose prevention centers make a positive difference by reducing public drug use, decreasing syringe litter, lowering the demand on local health care providers and emergency responders, connecting people to other services, and most importantly preventing drug overdoses. Let’s not lose any more Vermonters to overdoses, a preventable cause of death.”
Gov. Scott has said repeatedly in recent days that he opposes legalizing safe injection sites as “a bridge too far.” He has vetoed previous safe injection site legislation. Although the House vote did not achieve the 100 vote threshold for over-riding vetos, these 18 lawmakers were absent:
Andriano of Orwell
Bartley of Fairfax
Beck of St. Johnsbury
Birong of Vergennes
Campbell of St. Johnsbury
Cina of Burlington
Cordes of Lincoln
Demrow of Corinth
Graham of Williamstown
Higley of Lowell
Lalley of Shelburne
McCann of Montpelier
McFaun of Barre Town
Oliver of Sheldon
Pouech of Hinesburg
Priestley of Bradford
Walker of Swanton
White of Bethel
Lawmakers voting NO:
Arrison of Weathersfield
Branagan of Georgia
Brennan of Colchester
Brownell of Pownal
Burditt of West Rutland
Canfield of Fair Haven
Clifford of Rutland City
Corcoran of Bennington
Demar of Enosburgh
Dickinson of St. Albans Town
Donahue of Northfield
Galfetti of Barre Town
Goslant of Northfield
Gregoire of Fairfield
Hango of Berkshire
Harrison of Chittenden
Hooper of Randolph
Labor of Morgan
Laroche of Franklin
Marcotte of Coventry
Mattos of Milton
McCoy of Poultney
Morgan of Milton
Morris of Springfield
Morrissey of Bennington
Page of Newport City
Parsons of Newbury
Shaw of Pittsford
Smith of Derby
Taylor of Milton
Toof of St. Albans Town
Williams of Granby
Wilson of Lyndon
Maguire of Rutland City
Peterson of Clarendon
All other lawmakers (except Speaker Krowinski, who was present but did not vote) voted Yes.
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Categories: Legislation
First we courted those out of staters that wanted abortions. Then we courted out of staters that wanted to end their own lives on their own schedules. Now we are courting out of state junkies ? Ain’t those people under the Golden Dumb the grandest humanitarians !
We sure voted in a bunch of idiots p, especially the ones from Burlington
What are the details of the safe injection sites’
assistance and “ connecting to services”? Who will staff these?
More to come…..
Where will they be located? They should be in the neighborhoods of the legislators who voted for them.
NIMBY!!!!!
Connie,
This is in reality a jobs program for those progressive, liberal, democrats who never quite finished their higher education in “Gender Pronoun Recognition and Assignment” or “Professional DEI Demonstrating,” but who can now find employment staffing these new injection sites as “assistance workers” and those in the “connecting to services” ranks. Your tax dollars at work. Sort of. Well, the trash cans will need to be emptied…
Good grief, they have opened the flood gates now.
Vermont is now officially dead. 96 idiots mostly social activists with no common sense or connection to reality have destroyed what was once a beautiful safe state and turned it into a sewer like burlington!!! Are there NO voters left with any common sense or connection to reality?
Because clearly Portland Oregon is a shining example…..
What could go wrong with this boondoggle project, these governmental clowns approve the use of ” illegal drugs ” is Ok under their supervision, what is it that they don’t understand these drugs are ” illegal ” under federal law, so knowing and allowing this use in their presence, would make them an accomplice ??
Vermont will be getting the scourge from other states, knocking the door down to get here, instead of helping they are promoting ” illegal ” drug use !!
Time to get some common sense back into these House seats, wake up people !!
Call me old fashioned, but I remember a time when illegal things were illegal, not subsidized and facilitated by the state. What’s next, sections of highway with a posted speed limit of 55mph where drivers can do 90mph without repurcussions? Should we designate stores as “safe theft zones”?
One could probably drive 90 miles per hour, especially in Chittenden County where the SA Sarah George would not prosecute the excessive speed offense. Maybe a traffic ticket with a huge fine would successfully be prosecuted because she and her office have no part in the traffic court process.
so what happens if somebodies home identifies as a safe injection site?
Is every thing cool then?
Another stupid idea from the stupid folk in Montpelier that h btw there is nothing “safe” about injecting unknown poison
Of all the stupid things a blue state legislature could do, this is one of the stupidest. Basically trying to see how far off the cliff they can push the state.
“[H]arm-reduction criminal justice response to drug use bill, a/k/a safe injection sites.”
It would be more honest to referred to this as the “Opium Den 2.0 Bill.”
Before promoting any new magical feel-good remedies for society’s addiction problems, perhaps we ought to look back on some of the past strategies for “harm reduction” and done “in the interest of public health” that have, in my observation done just the opposite:
-needle “exchanges” were first proposed and marketed to the public as a system where someone could swap their dirty, bloodied needles/syringes for clean ones, one for one. We all now know that they have simply devolved into giveaway programs where needles are distributed by the dozens and no demand is ever made to turn in the old ones. The bloodied, potentially pathogenic ones are routinely discarded in public places where they can be contacted by children and pets. IV junkies make a conscious choice to engage in the well-known risks of their behavior, while innocent people who get stuck with an improperly discarded needle made no such choice.
-motel rooms given out based on the honor system to junkies who claim they have nowhere to live provide them with the luxury of privacy, which has resulted in numerous overdose deaths. We may declare that housing is a “human right”, but if they stayed in a communal shelter, someone would likely be around to intervene in their overdose.
-The widespread availability of Narcan now gives junkies a false sense of security to bring themselves even closer to the overdose abyss every time they shoot up, with the assumption that it will save them. That only applies if someone is around that has Narcan and is able to administer it in time.
-The police and news media used to publicize the packaging stamp on dangerous batches of heroin/opioid powder when there was a cluster of overdoses. It has been realized that information has been used by the most serious junkies to seek out the “good stuff”. That cautionary information is no longer available for those more careful junkies who may wish to avoid trouble. Now we taxpayers are providing free fentanyl test kits, and those kits are reportedly being used to allow the serious junkies to seek out the most potent product.
If the overdose numbers and rates of blood-borne diseases were going down, we may think we were on to something but the numbers keep rising. Pardon my insensitivity but at what point do we re-introduce the concept of personal responsibility to the opioid addict community and stop treating their SELF-INDUCED SITUATION as if it is everyone’s problem?
Do the towns they earmark for these programs have any say in this? The Brattleboro one is going to suck in all those dopers from greenfield. Then they keep expanding the bus system. There goes the neighborhood. The Burlington one is going to get a lot dopers from whatever New York areas. Wear your boots, because you will be dodging poop and needles all over the sidewalks.
WARNING!!! To prepare for the increase in crime coming to VT, make sure you take some self-defense gun courses, get to know your draw to first hit times, and know all of the the go signal timings by heart. Always carry a gun, knife, pepper spray, first aid kit, phone, and flashlight. Start locking your house when you are home and NEVER answer the door. Be vigilant, and aware of your surroundings for potential attackers.
The only solution is a multi-step process. Legalize all drugs starting with prescriptions and monitoring for dangerous or problematic drugs. Remove all forms of drug user enablement / public “welfare”, and transfer it to private vetting charities, and insurance companies. Disallow any programs that have schools collaborating with big pharma to give drugs to children at a young age who are having trouble paying attention in school, and replace it with drug free solutions. Disallow anyone in public office who are on medications that have “homicide” listed in the side-effects label.
Welcome to San-ver-frisco-mont I bet none of those ‘safe injection sites’ will be in any of the 96 yes voter towns.
Perhaps if all 96 YES voters declared their yards (or condo lobbies) as “safe injection sites” we could get a real jump on preventing drug overdoses and improving harm reduction in Vermont.
“Controlled Substances Act (also known as the “crackhouse law” and codified at United States Code, 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)) outlaws maintaining, managing or owning any place used to manufacture, distribute or use drugs to include temporary or permanent uses of the premises.
Rules and jail for one class of people. No rules or jail for another class of people. What could possibly go wrong when you have 2 classes of people, and one has no accountability? I WONDER!
How about the Operation Pipe Dreams, making it illegal to distribute paraphernalia “Tommy Chong was sentenced September 11, 2003, to 9 months in a federal prison, a fine of $20,000, forfeiture of $103,000 in assets, and a year of probation. Chong was charged for his part in financing and promoting Chong Glass Works”
My, how times have changed!
If you go over to Reddit where people are debating this now in the Vermont thread, there are people from Burlington that think that this will be the end of needles in the city like an addict is going to get up from their free hotel room, go down to the injection site, listen to a spiel from a medical professional, do their thing and go on with their day. Unbelievable
the ones that voted yes must have stocks in big pharma///need for more grants//// families income depend on programs/// what connects these people///
The Biden administration distributes crack pipes, why be surprised the Vermont Legislature is all in on promoting and supporting drug addiction with the hopes of increasing body counts and life long disability? As far as safe injection sites, it was not long ago the State set up multiple injection sites everywhere across the State encouraging and demanding all to come get injected. Here’s your sign, get the picture yet?
Think of the most idiotic thing to support and the morons in Montpelier and Burlington will support it.