Yesterday, Senator Saud Anwar (D-East Hartford) held a press conference in support of SB 195, a proposed bill that would enable officials at the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) to operate a four-year pilot program of four overdose prevention centers, often known as safe-use sites.
“This [fatal overdose] is the number one cause of the deaths of the Connecticut citizens that is preventable,” said Sen. Anwar, Co-Chair of the Public Health Committee. “We have work to do, and that’s why we have some of the finest minds on this issue in — not only in the country, not only in our state, but the world, who are here with us, so we are very proud of some of the people who are here for this conversation.”
The bill would grant DMHAS officials the ability to open four safe-use centers across whichever four municipalities they choose, so long as the centers are municipally approved. DMHAS would be barred from using state funds to open or operate the centers and would rely on private donations or grants. These centers would be staffed by licensed health care providers, who would provide drug users with drug testing strips, inform them about naloxone and the risks of syringe-sharing, and provide users with, or connect them to, addiction and mental health counseling. These providers would also be tasked with supervising drug use in cordoned-off sections of each facility, with the idea that if an overdose occurs, there would be a qualified health professional there to administer naloxone and provide medical attention.
The centers would also give users access to basic amenities, such as laundry machines, bathrooms, showers and beds. The bill would grant DMHAS the statutory authority to create a 15-person advisory committee, if it so chooses. The committee, if established, would be headed by DMHAS’s Commissioner. The other fourteen members would be the Attorney General, or a person they designate, as well as people with experience in law enforcement, overdose prevention, addiction medicine, and former and active lived experience with substance use disorder. The committee would make recommendations regarding the centers’ efficacy, implementation, support program availability, and any legal limitations impacting the centers’ operation.
The idea of safe-use centers has been brought before the state’s legislature several times before. In 2023, a bill was passed out of the Public Health Committee which would establish three such DMHAS-ran safe-use sites. Before its passage, the bill was amended to remove the safe-use functionality of the sites, instead approving their use only for the provision of drug testing strips and connecting users to addiction services. Last year, the issue was again brought before the legislature in an omnibus health bill, SB 7. The language enabling the provision of safe-use sites survived a Senate vote, and the bill was brought before the House, before rumors of a Lamont veto resulted in the bill being amended to remove the language.
One of the most cited concerns by opponents of the safe-use centers is the fact that, per federal law, they may just be illegal. A 1986 amendment to the federal Controlled Substances Act, colloquially called the “crackhouse statute,” makes it illegal to, “knowingly open, lease, rent, use, or maintain any place, whether permanently or temporarily, for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance.” Per the law, the operators of such spaces could face 20 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000 for an individual operator, and $2 million if run by an organization.
Despite the potential legal quagmire presented by this statute, Rhode Island and New York have both successfully opened safe-use centers of their own. In 2021, Rhode Island became the first state to legalize the concept, and New York City became the site of the nation’s first two safe-use centers, with one opening in East Harlem and another in Washington Heights. In December 2024, Rhode Island opened its first safe-use center in Providence. New York’s sites are not technically sanctioned by state law, and while they have been threatened, first by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Southern New York in 2023, and most recently by an executive order issued by President Trump last year, no legal action has yet been brought against them.
“I have been working on harm reduction in the law since the very first needle exchanges, and in all that time, there has never been a new thing in harm reduction that somebody didn’t say was illegal,” said Scott Burris, a Temple University law professor and Director of Temple’s Center for Public Health Law Research. “As Senator Anwar’s bill goes forward, you’re going to hear people tell you, ‘Oh, no, you can’t do that. That’s illegal.’ And the simple answer is, ‘So you say. I’ll see you in court. This is going to win.’”
Burris, who spoke in support of the bill at yesterday’s conference, said that the federal Controlled Substances Act will “no more shut down opioid prevention centers and overdose prevention centers in the long run, than it’s shut down medical marijuana or recreational marijuana, or any other many things that states are doing.”
Anwar echoed Burris’s sentiments, stating that substance use disorder is “a public health crisis, it’s not a legal issue.” Other proponents of the bill, such as Dita Bhargava, who is currently pursuing her Master’s in Public Health at Yale, and Diane Santos, a former patient care coordinator at Backus Hospital in Norwich, said their support comes from their experiences losing children to the opioid crisis. Bhargava’s son, Alec Pelletier, died in 2018 on his 26th birthday, and Santos’ son, Mark Andrew Collins, died in 2023, also aged 26.
Bhargava described her son as a “funny, smart, sensitive young man, a AAA hockey player with so much life, so much to live for,” and said he was first introduced to opioids via painkillers that were prescribed to him. She said Alec was clean for the months preceding his death, and died of a relapse at a sober home in Canaan. Bhargava said he “carefully placed Narcan by his bedside” the night of his death, but did not inform the others at the home that he was using.
“Shame kept him silent,” said Bhargava. “If Alec had a safe, compassionate place to go in that moment of despair, he would be here today. As we painfully know from Alec’s situation, Narcan is ineffective without someone present. There is nothing immoral about saving a life; failing to act when that life could be saved — It’s just not right.”
Santos’ son followed a similar trajectory. She said that nine days before his death, he told his parents that he was addicted and wanted help. Santos said he had fallen into “chaotic use” and grew “tired of the chase,” but that when she and her son asked various hospitals and medical facilities for help, they were turned away. Santos said Mark died in his bedroom, adjacent to her own, and she found him the morning after.
“I went in the next morning to wake him, because we were going to re-call every facility in our area to get him help, and I found him cold and unresponsive on his bedroom floor,” said Santos. “Overdose prevention centers, safe consumption sites bridge a gap. They allow people to use under supervision. They allow people to be treated again as human beings, without stigma.”
Other lawmakers who spoke in support of the bill were Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey (D-Bridgeport), Co-Chair of the Public Health Committee, and Rep. Josh Elliott (D-Hamden), a self-described “rank and file member” of the Committee. McCarthy Vahey said when the idea was first proposed to her, she was skeptical, but was swayed by evidence and stories.
“I know that this journey has been exhausting, and it will continue to be, especially as that pain is so real and so ever present for every single person who has lost someone,” said McCarthy Vahey. “But we are here and we are committed to this journey and to this work.”
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