Group Urges Biden to Support Rehab, Not Drug Addict Sites

A new anti-addiction coalition is calling on President Biden to take a stand against controversial government-licensed injection sites where addicts can inject, and instead provide addicts with the rehabilitation treatment provided by his son, Hunter Biden.

NorthAmericaRecovers.org, an umbrella organization made up of 21 groups including Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Death, unveiled a mobile digital ad in D.C. on Monday featuring a photo of a homeless fentanyl addict’s mother saying, “Please help my son to escape addiction by helping Hunter.

New York City has two state-licensed, controlled consumption facilities called “Overdose Prevention Centers.”

The group said other cities, such as Philadelphia, are seeking a federal waiver of a federal ban on sanctioned drug use sites.

The ads are intended to convince Biden and his Justice Department to move away from “controlled drug use areas” where taxpayer-funded medical professionals help anyone over 18 inject or smoke fentanyl and other hard drugs. The purpose of places of consumption is to prevent death from drug overdose.

The debate is heating up amid record fentanyl-related overdose deaths in New York and across the country. The synthetic opioid is at least 50 times more potent than morphine and enters the states from the southern border.

“As a coalition, we urge President Biden to move away from these sites in favor of a recovery-first system to address our addiction crisis,” the coalition said in a statement on the organization’s new website, NorthAmericaRecovers.org. “This means that we must allocate sufficient funding for evidence-based intervention, treatment and recovery programs.”

Jacqui Berlinn, the mom in the ad featuring photos of her drug addict son, said: “I’m doing this because I’m afraid that if Biden legalizes these so-called supervised drug sites, he’ll send my son and millions of others like he, to a life of dependence and homelessness.”

“The United States needs a system of assistance to drug addicts, the purpose of which is to get rid of addiction, not to encourage it. We have reduced cigarette smoking by eliminating designated smoking areas, not creating them. People recover from addiction in rehab clinics, not in bars.

The activist mother continued: “President Biden is actively considering denying my son the care he has rightfully fought for for years, so that his son Hunter gets. Today, Hunter is recovering from years of alcohol and cocaine addiction. Does President Biden think it would be better for Hunter today if the city of Los Angeles sent him to a state drug abuse center rather than a rehab facility?”

In a photograph used in the ad, Berlinn said that last year she protested a controlled drug site in San Francisco with other members of Our Mothers Against Drug Abuse and Death.

She noted that San Francisco Mayor London Breed closed the sale of licensed drugs last month after protests, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the legalization of state-run drug websites across California.

“It’s time for a change. It is time for Biden to publicly state that he will not legalize state drug dens, but instead will build the addiction recovery system that America needs, ”Berlinn said.

But the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says the Big Apple’s two injection sites are successfully fighting overdoses. From November 2021 to 2022, the sites were used over 52,000 times by 2,227 drug users.

“Personnel intervened in more than 670 overdoses to prevent possible injury or death. During this period, emergency medical services were activated ten times in response to overdose cases, and there were no deaths,” the department said in a recent release.