Boston Police Turn Blind Eye to Drug Use Outside Government ‘Harm Reduction’ Facility

Policy

Violence and crime rampant outside clinic that provides free syringes, crack pipes

Police outside AHOPE harm reduction facility in Boston Patrick Hauf • October 1, 2022 4:59 am

BOSTON—The sidewalk surrounding the city government’s so-called harm reduction facility in South Boston, which exists to make drug use safe, has devolved into a lawless safe haven for addicts who are free to inject dangerous drugs in plain sight of the city’s police force.

The city’s drug users congregate outside Access, Harm Reduction, Overdose Prevention, and Education (AHOPE), the Boston Public Health Commission’s harm reduction facility, to pick up free drug paraphernalia such as syringes and crack pipes. The Washington Free Beacon saw several users inject in front of the building, where an officer sat inside a parked police car. Remnants of pipes, syringes, and drug capsules filled the cracks in the sidewalk. Security guards at a next-door homeless shelter said police monitor the area to counter violence—which erupts daily between addicts—but otherwise overlook public drug use.

“All the time—violence,” one security guard told the Free Beacon.

So far this year, Boston police have made 29 arrests for aggravated assault on the one-mile street outside the AHOPE facility, which neighbors the Boston University Medical Campus and Boston Medical Center, according to police data. Police have also made arrests for 12 robberies, 5 auto thefts, 23 warrant arrests, and 32 “sick assists”—8 of which for “drug-related illness.” While Boston police also made 44 arrests for “drug possession/sale manufacturing/use,” it is unclear which specific charge was the cause for each arrest. Police officers declined to speak with a Free Beacon reporter on site, and the Boston Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The disorder outside AHOPE provides a case study in how the Biden administration’s controversial harm reduction approach to drug policy—which aims to make drug use safer for addicts rather than prevent it—can facilitate crime and dangerous drug abuse. The Department of Health and Human Services launched the nation’s first federal harm reduction program in May, doling out $30 million in grants to