Newsflash: The Santa Monica City Council voted to eliminate drug use from city parks. Well, no. The Council voted to eliminate the needle exchange program from city parks. Actually, they didn’t do that either.
The Council passed a resolution to express their disapproval of the way the needle exchange program is being implemented by the county. For the record, the disapproval wasn’t unanimous, and the councilmembers jousted feistily over what can best be described as a non-binding memo.
Currently, Los Angeles County sponsors mobile health units that provide unhoused people who use drugs with overdose prevention medication, disease screening, and, most controversially, syringe (needle) distribution. Despite decades of medical research supporting the effectiveness of such programs, there’s a yuck factor to facilitating addiction, and that multiplies when the facilitating takes place in public parks.
The four councilmembers who want the program removed from the parks (Brock, De La Torre, Negrete, and Parra) are short on scientific facts, but they compensate with moving personal anecdotes about children finding syringes in playgrounds. Finding the words “children” and “syringes” in the same sentence is alarming, which would seem to give sway to the councilmembers’ argument.
Except…
The program is located in the parks because that’s where it’s effective.
There’s a California state law supporting needle exchange programs, officially called “harm reduction,” and cities that have banned the practice have been sued by the state, a costly effort with mixed results.
Most important, getting rid of the needle exchanges in the parks won’t get rid of the needles, because it won’t eliminate the source of the problem: the large number of unhoused people inhabiting the parks. Councilmember Parra has spoken of upsetting incidents in Reed Park going back 10 years, but that’s long before the current program was initiated.
The three councilmembers defending the status quo (Davis, Torosis and Zwick) have done so with a litany of data showing these programs exponentially increase participation in drug treatment, significantly reduce the spread of hepatitis and HIV, and save lives from overdoses (12 lives saved each month in Santa Monica).
The data is compelling, but the scolding tone seems counterproductive. Councilmember De La Torre told me that he found it condescending. “Councilmember Davis brings in all this evidence to suggest we’re wrong and she’s right,” he said, “but common sense tells me that we’re right, and she’s wrong.”
That’s a natural response — and very problematic. We have too many people in this country substituting their own personal beliefs for facts, whether the topic be climate change, election fraud, or measles vaccines. And the repercussions are magnified when those people are elected officials.
Everything has become us vs them, saint or sinner. But the truth is the Councilmembers are neither. They’re well-intentioned public servants who are entitled to disagree about challenging issues. There’s nothing wrong with having opposing opinions, as long as they’re willing to listen to one another and accept facts, including facts that contradict their opinions.
To that point, the Council resolution as written violates CDC guidelines, and some councilmembers have claimed hepatitis and HIV aren’t current priorities, though each new case of HIV in an unhoused person costs taxpayers $400,000. Meanwhile, Mayor Brock has expressed distress about “helping people commit suicide by drug abuse,” which may not be scientific, but it’s a real feeling that many residents agree with, which is a fact of its own.
“We have to show compassion to those who are unhoused,” Mayor Brock told me, “but we also have to show compassion to residents and businesses.”
So the question’s how do we reduce harm for the marginalized homeless population while also reducing harm to vulnerable children, and other parkgoers? I would like to have asked Councilmembers Torosis and Zwick this question, but both rejected my interview requests, which is their prerogative. They don’t need to talk to me, but they do need to talk with their fellow council members, and vice versa.
There are compromises to be found, including the County adding needle cleanup service with the needle exchange, which the CDC recommends. But if everyone insists they have the high moral ground, then we’ll find ourselves isolated on mountaintops, bellowing at each other.
This is my first column for the Santa Monica Daily Press, and my goal is to initiate a conversation to break through some of the cognitive dissonance from the past years of quarantine, warfare, and alternative facts. I doubt we can alter the dysfunction in DC, but I hope there’s a silent majority who want to see our local leaders engage with each other and to do so with honesty, empathy and competence. Maybe that’s too much to ask from politicians. Or maybe in an election year, anything is possible. At the very least, I hope I can, pardon the pun, move the needle.
Devan Sipher