New top federal prosecutor in Mass. says supervised injection sites are illegal
Leah Foley, United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts
The new top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts underscored her opposition this week to supervised drug use sites and issued a "guarantee" that the Trump administration will never allow states like Massachusetts to skirt the federal law criminalizing the long-debated facilities.
U.S. Attorney Leah Foley, who took office in January, issued a statement Wednesday responding to an editorial in which the Lowell Sun suggested the federal government could turn a "blind eye" to the issue and asked, "Has the time finally arrived to challenge prevailing federal law in an effort to save addicts’ lives?"
Foley, a former deputy chief of the office's Narcotics & Money Laundering Unit who has previously said she would oppose supervised drug use sites, said her response was simple: "No."
"As to the hope for a blind eye, I guarantee that such a time will never come during this Administration," she said. "'Safe injections sites,' 'harm reduction sites,' or however they are branded by advocates, are categorically illegal and do nothing to help people overcome their addictions. To the contrary, they facilitate destructive behavior that ruins lives, consumes families and devastates communities."
Activists have been pushing state government for years to pass a bill authorizing overdose prevention centers and federal law has consistently been identified as the primary barrier. In 2018, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said anyone who uses or works at such a facility could face federal charges "regardless of any state law or study."
Gov. Maura Healey's administration announced its support for the idea of supervised drug use sites in 2023, and the Senate approved language last year allowing municipalities to open locations as part of a broader addiction and substance use bill. That provision was dropped in negotiations with the House.
Supporters of the idea say allowing medically trained professionals to monitor street drug use, then intervene and try to prevent an overdose from turning fatal, would help prevent fatal overdoses as powerful synthetics flood the drug supply and could serve as an opportunity to connect addicts with treatment or other services.
Foley said Wednesday that policymakers needs to look only as far as the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard to see "the direct result of the ill-conceived experiment allowing drug users to flout the law."
"Businesses left and have not come back. Creating environments that assist people with pumping poisons into their bodies is neither compassionate nor constructive," the U.S. attorney said. "We should continue to direct all our resources to the prevention efforts that steer people, especially our youth, away from drug use and treatment protocols that truly save peoples’ lives from their addictions."
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