In a predictable 4-3 split along party lines, City Council voted to prepare and return for Council approval within 30 days a resolution expressing the City’s disapproval of Los Angeles County’s implementation of the “Harm Reduction Services” program, or “needle exchange program,” in Santa Monica.
The essence of the discussion revolved around a program whereby every week in the centrally located Christine Emerson Reed Park, a transit van from the Venice Family Clinic distributes clean syringes, Narcan and fentanyl testing kits to anyone suffering from drug addiction.
According to City Manager David White, the program is “contracted to operate up to three hours per week in the city, but right now they’re operating one hour per week in the city” and “particularly in Reed Park.”
A significant cause of concern is that St. Monica’s school is directly opposite Reed Park, which incorporates publicly accessible basketball and tennis courts. However, the Los Angeles Times recently published a story on this contentious issue that included a photograph of the program also operating in Tongva Park.
Critics claim the program enables the continued use of drugs, draws more homeless to the city and makes parks unsafe, but researchers have linked syringe programs with a roughly 50% reduction in HIV and hepatitis C. Los Angeles County originally initiated the program — without any input whatsoever from the City of Santa Monica — in a number of parks during the pandemic, including Palisades Park, Reed Park and Tongva Park.
Following an overdose death of a homeless person found in Palisades Park in July, 2022, then Mayor Sue Himmelrich called for a halt to the program and “immediately [move] this program to a service rich environment (preferably indoors) where individuals in need of substance abuse, mental health, and other services can coordinate and work directly with service providers” in a unanimous open letter sent to Los Angeles County officials in September of that year.
However, the program has remained in operation. Local officials have not been consulted on nor do they have authority over the program prompting a lawsuit from Downtown property owner John Alle’s over the legality of the program.
Councilmember Christine Parra opened the discussion, however, much like Councilmember Oscar de la Torre, Vice Mayor Lana Negrete and Mayor Phil Brock, their arguments were all anecdotal. Only Councilmember Gleam Davis, who is in support of the program, bought hard evidence to support her case and while the statistics she presented were impressive, it lacked any mention regarding the methodology that might have made it specifically relevant to Santa Monica prompting the program critics to dismiss its relevance.
Mayor Brock said he also had data on the topic, but chose not to present any.
“I’m happy to read a lot of data for you from the [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration] Office of Recovery, but I don’t think we really have the time to keep going through this,” he said.
De la Torre expressed his skepticism over the data Davis presented. “It’s pretty amazing to hear all that great report [sic] and I just want to say that I don’t really trust some of it. You think about some of the reports that the federal government brought crack cocaine into many of our urban cities, a lot of people died from that … And I remember when crack cocaine hit our streets and what it did to make people end up addicted, it destroyed lives,” he said, later adding, “For me it’s [like] we had an epidemic of people shooting themselves in the head, I think it’s not a good idea for the government to be passing out handguns.”
Speaking in support of the program, Councilmember Zwick said the program was a symptom, not a cause of, the problem.
“People don’t come to Reed Park for the one hour per week in which needles are distributed,” he said. “Reduction comes to the park because that’s where the people who need harm reduction are. If we put it somewhere where no one was, no one would get help.”
The tension in chambers was clear and the behavior of some members of Council was somewhere between amusing and adolescent. The final motion by De la Torre and seconded by Brock included additional language expressing support for a program in other settings provided they were not near parks or schools.
Councilmembers Caroline Torosis, Davis and Zwick voted not to condemn the County’s program while Parra, Brock, De la Torre and Negrete voted to prepare and return a resolution expressing the City’s disapproval of the County’s implementation of the program within 30 days.
According to the agenda, the resolution “should reflect the City’s opposition to the program in Santa Monica, as it’s misguided and does not achieve the goal of reducing harm. The program encourages continued use of illegal and dangerous drugs, and people are dying as a result. Residents should not have to see people shooting up in our neighborhood parks, nor the behavior that results from illegal drug use. Drug use and needles simply do not belong in our parks and other public spaces.”