EXCLUSIVE — Washington, D.C. mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George has floated the policy of opening safe injection sites in the district to help relieve its opioid overdose crisis.
Safe injection sites, sometimes called overdose prevention centers, are places where people can go to use illegal drugs under professional supervision. The facilities are aimed at creating spots where people struggling with substance abuse can use illicit drugs in a spot where they are at a lower risk of overdosing. But the centers have also faced criticism from communities and neighbors, as blue cities have begun to distance themselves from the strategy.
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Lewis George, a current councilwoman and socialist, is a front-runner in the mayor’s race, edging out her main opponent, former councilman Kenyan McDuffie, in the latest poll ahead of the June 16 Democratic primary. Lewis George broke fundraising records in the district when she launched her Zohran Mamdani-style candidacy, aiming to attract young voters with liberal ideas.
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Endorsed by the district’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, she has centered her public safety platform on coupling offender accountability with intervention and prevention techniques. She pointed to the idea of safe injection sites for addressing the opioid crisis in the Metro DC DSA’s endorsement questionnaire in May 2025, calling opioid overdoses “one of the most urgent public health crises” that the district faces.
“We need to confront this crisis head on with effective interventions aimed at increasing awareness, treatment, recovery, stable housing, and wrap-around support for those struggling with substance abuse,” Lewis George wrote. “We need safe injection sites and harm reduction centers.”
There are currently three safe injection sites in the United States: one in Providence, Rhode Island, and two in New York City. Each of the sites has opened in the past five years, with the two in New York opening in 2025. Lewis George visited one of the centers in New York City.
“I traveled to OnPoint in NYC with fellow DSA elected official, NYC Councilperson Tiffany Cabán, and saw how safe injection sites and harm reduction centers reduced addiction, reduced overdoses, and saved lives,” Lewis George wrote.
Every center in the U.S. is operated by nonprofit organizations, like OnPoint, as public officials have proceeded with caution on the policy. In Rhode Island, the state legislature backed the idea and legalized these so-called “harm reduction centers” under a pilot program in 2021, paving the way for the Providence center to open. But the sites in New York were launched under former Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and remain in legal limbo as the state never legalized them, and they remain illegal under federal law.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) has consistently opposed safe injection centers. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said late in his campaign that he did not want to see the number of facilities expanded beyond the two current centers in East Harlem and Washington Heights.
Other prominent Democrats, such as Govs. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Josh Shapiro (D-PA), and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker have also opposed the concept of safe injection sites.
The policy is a hot-button issue as critics say they do not provide solutions to the baseline problem of substance abuse, and they often catch the ire of local residents frustrated with the facilities going up in their neighborhoods.
“Nobody is going to be excited about a safe injection site opening up across the street from their house, near places that they go,” Matt Yglesias, a criminal justice pundit and columnist, told the Washington Examiner. “And so, absent overwhelming evidence of benefits, it’s just inherently a hard sell. And I don’t think that evidence has materialized in the places where it’s been tried.”
The facilities, part of a liberal approach to substance abuse dubbed harm reduction, are relatively new in the U.S. and had their first government-backed study authorized in 2023. But the three facilities have touted their own numbers, with OnPoint reporting that it has prevented over 680 fatal overdoses.
Lewis George first discussed the idea of safe injection sites in the district in 2023, as she requested $15 million in the fiscal 2024 budget to open two centers in the district, according to the Washington Post. This proposal didn’t gain much traction or make it into the budget.
Lewis George’s campaign did not provide further comment to the Washington Examiner on her policy ideas surrounding safe injection sites beyond what she wrote in the 2026 DSA questionnaire. In her questionnaire response, Lewis George also mentioned that one of her uncles had struggled with addiction and noted how “this issue confronts so many families and ruins so many lives” in the district.
Washington, D.C., is unlike other American cities as it is so closely intertwined with the federal government and federal jurisdiction. Under a GOP-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration, any plans for facilities would likely not get far.
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Trump has targeted the idea of injection sites, signing an executive order in 2025 that warns against funding “‘harm reduction’ or ‘safe consumption’ efforts.”
In 2025, Washington, D.C., saw an estimated 355 opioid overdose deaths, which is about 13.8% lower than the estimated 412 fatal overdoses in 2024, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The highest concentration of fatal and non-fatal overdoses occurred in Wards 7 and 8. Overdoses disproportionately impact black residents in the district, per Axios.
