A Pennsylvania nonprofit, Safehouse, that’s seeking to open a supervised drug injection site at Philadelphia is telling a federal appeals court that opening the center — and thus doing “everything possible” to keep drug users alive even for “one more day” — is part of exercising its members’ “deeply held religious convictions.” 

“Safehouse’s board members grieve for every life lost to overdose,” the group argues in an opening brief filed earlier this month in its appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals— the latest in its years-long battle with the Department of Justice over opening the safe drug consumption site. “Their religious beliefs include a call to give shelter to the vulnerable and to treat them with dignity and humanity. They seek to exercise these shared religious beliefs by opening an overdose prevention center in Philadelphia.”

The safe injection site would provide sterile equipment and a safe drug “consumption room” where medical personnel will observe users, intervene during overdoses, and advise on “sterile injection technique,” among other treatments and services.

Safehouse’s co-founder, Ronda Goldfein, tells the Sun that she’s expecting the Justice Department’s response at the beginning of October unless it obtains an extension.

Safehouse has been entrenched in a years-long dispute with the Department of Justice, which — under the Trump administration in 2019 — sued the nonprofit to prevent it from opening the injection site, arguing its operation would violate statute 21 USC § 856 of the Controlled Substances Act, or the “crack house” statute. While a district court initially sided with Safehouse, as the Sun reported, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held in 2021 that operating the injection site would be illegal under the decades-old federal law, which makes it a crime to operate sites for unlawful drug consumption.

“Congress has made it a crime to open a property to others to use drugs,” the appeals court opinion notes. “And that is what Safehouse will do.” The opinion said that regardless of Safehouse’s “benevolent motive,” because it “knows and intends that its visitors will come with a significant purpose of doing drugs,” it goes against federal law as it is written.

The appeals court remanded one issue to the district court, though — Safehouse’s First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act claims that its leaders had a religious right to open the site because of their “Judeo-Christian beliefs” that they argue include “the principle that preservation of human life overrides any other considerations.”

The Justice Department, in response, argued that Safehouse “is not a religious organization and thus cannot plausibly assert a RFRA or Free Exercise claim on behalf of the corporation itself.”

“Moreover, Safehouse’s professed ‘belief’ in facilitating illegal drug use is not a ‘religious’ one, but rather a socio-political belief informed by harm-reduction principles,” the Justice Department argued in its motion to dismiss the case, also noting that even if it were a religious belief, there are a “multitude of alternative means” in which Safehouse could profess its beliefs. 

The district court agreed with the federal government, saying it was persuaded that “Safehouse is not a religious entity” and that its “religious inspiration does not provide a shield against prosecution for violation of a federal criminal statute barring its operation.” 

As Safehouse appeals that dismissal by the district court, Ms. Goldfein says that the Supreme Court’s 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores precedent makes it clear that you don’t “have to be a religious entity to assert religious freedom.”

“Hobby Lobby is a national crafting store, and they decided that they were not going to provide reproductive health care to its employees because they argue that it violated their faith,” she says. “The Supreme Court said that was okay, so we said, if a large crafting store can assert its religious beliefs — that’s certainly not a religious entity — and we have the same freedoms.” 

If Safehouse prevails in court, it certainly would not be the first such “safe injection site” — advocates note more than 100 similar locations have been set up worldwide in the last three decades. New York City’s two operational sites were the first to open in America, and Providence, Rhode Island earlier this year authorized the first state-sanctioned safe injection site. 

Ms. Goldfein says that as far as she knows, Safehouse is the only location that is involved in litigation with the Justice Department. In the five years since Safehouse was initially sued, the group’s appeal notes, more than 7,200 people have died of opioid overdoses in Philadelphia. Facing such a devastating overdose crisis, Ms. Goldfein says, “it’s hard for us to not begin an initiative that will save lives.”

Yet in Philadelphia, where Safehouse is aiming to open its site, attitudes towards drug policies have been changing in recent months, including the city’s Democratic mayor cracking down on the city’s notorious Kensington neighborhood.

The changing attitudes appear to be part of a larger, national shift away from “harm reduction” policies, as the injection sites face criticism for drawing in crime, homelessness, and drug dealers to the nearby neighborhoods, as well as enabling drug users. 

The Justice Department did not respond to a request from the Sun for comment.