A number of locals in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood have spoken out about their disgust at the prevalence of drug users in plain view in the area.
The people of Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill are fed up with a “harm-reduction” group that hands out free drug paraphernalia to people with an addiction. They assert that, as a consequence, dozens of open drug users who use heroin and crack regularly have started showing up and doing their thing out in the open.
On Wednesdays, outside the entrance to the Clinton-Washington Avenue C line subway station, a nonprofit that receives substantial financing from the city and the foundation of George Soros gives out free crack pipes, heroin preparation tools, and needles.
An eyewitness named Stephanie Cole claims to have seen people take advantage of the free pipes near the metro to inject narcotics and consume crack openly.
She’s encountered various types of litter and debris, including broken crack pipes, on her doorstep. Two weeks prior, she was sweeping broken glass from the discarded free crack pipes.
According to another local, she has seen needles and syringes lying throughout her neighborhood.
Many organizations and individuals have generously supported Vocal-NY financially. These include the city council, the Open Society Foundations, and the Ford Foundation. Vocal-NY’s operations from 2018 to 2022 would not have been possible without these monies.
In addition to distributing materials, Alyssa Aguilera, co-executive director of Vocal-NY, said that their outreach crew also strives to clean up the outreach areas.
According to a new study published in JAMA Network Open, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association, crime did not increase in the neighborhoods around the first two federally authorized safe injection sites in the United States, both of which were in New York City. Not so surprisingly, the study also found that concerns about quality of life had increased since the sites were set up.
The communities around the two safe injection sites in East Harlem and Washington Heights saw a decline in 911 calls related to criminal situations and medical problems, according to a pioneering report co-authored by former NYPD precinct commander Brandon del Pozo. Nonetheless, 311 complaints about drug-related activities saw a slight increase.
According to the report, arrests for drug and weapon possession were far lower in specific communities than in the rest of the city. That conclusion disproves the idea that those locations would see a dramatic increase in crime once they opened, and it concurs with Mayor Adams’ support of the initiatives.
