Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration is oversaturating Harlem with drug therapy services — and it’s obtained to cease, fed up Congressman Adriano Espaillat (D-13) mentioned.
“It’s an excessive amount of for the group. It’s completely uncontrolled,” Espaillat informed The Submit.
There are presently 13 such clinics — many operating alongside or close to the backbone of one hundred and twenty fifth Road — with 75% to 80% of sufferers coming from outdoors of Harlem, the congressman mentioned.
The excessive focus of therapy clinics serving addicts can be attracting extra drug sellers to the neighborhood, claimed Espaillat.
For the mess he blames the state Workplace of Habit Companies and Helps, which licenses and approves drug therapy packages. Hochul oversees the company.
“It’s dangerous planning,” Espaillat mentioned. “OASAS has been horrible.”
He mentioned he’s personally mentioned the issue with the governor, however that the established order is untenable.
Espaillat mentioned service provider teams just like the one hundred and twenty fifth Enterprise Enchancment District are livid and described the abundance of drug therapy clinics in a single hall a kind of “redlining.” The retailers, feeling beneath siege, even objected to opening a authorized pot retailer throughout from the Apollo Theater.
In accordance with an inventory offered by the congressman’s workplace, the places of simply among the dependancy facilities embrace:
- 119 W. 124th Road
- 103 East one hundred and twenty fifth Road
- 132 W. one hundred and twenty fifth Road
- 2406 Amsterdam Avenue
- 2191 Third Avenue
- 2367-69 Second Avenue
“I’ve lengthy expressed my issues and am deeply troubled by the variety of OASAS clinics and their placement in my district,” mentioned Espaillat. “There’s an undeniably disproportionate quantity of methadone therapy clinics in communities in my district in comparison with the residents who want it.
“This disparity leads to practically an 80% enhance of treatment-seekers from outdoors of our communities to commute to Harlem and East Harlem for these companies, a sample which has subsequently created a rise within the drug sellers within the surrounding space in addition to a rise in drug use and overdoses in our communities,” he continued.
He mentioned he has urged OASAS to relocate among the drug therapy clinics so they’re distributed extra equitably throughout town “as against the present oversaturation in predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods,” he mentioned.
Espaillat famous that northern Manhattan is shouldering greater than its share of accountability in serving to addicts get their lives again on monitor.
His district consists of two controversial “secure” drug injection websites — the place addicts can deliver their very own medication and are supplied with clear needles to shoot up beneath the watch of medical professionals. A report by The Submit revealed that drug sellers bought narcotics to sufferers on the injection websites.
The fentanyl disaster has solely worsened the scenario, the congressman mentioned.
“I’ve seen individuals capturing up medication between vehicles,” he mentioned.
The Submit beforehand reported a couple of legion of drug-addicted zombies roaming East Harlem and remodeling components of the neighborhood into lawless, open-air capturing galleries.
The congressman is aware of the harm that open drug use can trigger a group, having battled the crack epidemic that contaminated Washington Heights within the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties.
OASAS and Hochul’s workplace had no instant remark.
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