It was seven months ago that we noted The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold‘s article on how oh-so-well-intended “harm reduction” measures were actually hurting the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia.

(Sonja Bingham’s, a 55-year-old mother of three, and local Kensington activist) problem is not just with the hundreds of drug users camped out in Kensington—her neighborhood in northeast Philly that’s been dubbed ground zero for the city’s opioid crisis. It’s with an ecosystem of activists that call themselves “harm reductionists.”

Those who advocate for harm reduction — a Biden-endorsed policy that prioritizes users’ safety over their sobriety or abstinence — say they’re helping fix the problem. But when I visited Kensington last month, Bingham and almost a dozen other residents told me that the activists are actually the ones causing it.

Even The Wall Street Journal noted what a disaster Kensington has been, and how the city’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, has tried to stymie Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ plans to clean up the blighted area, and now we have a new complaint, this time in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

In City Hall’s actions in Kensington, harm-reduction workers see efforts to curtail their work

Several programs that serve people with addiction in Philadelphia have faced new restrictions this year.

by Aubrey Whelan | New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

Over the last year in Kensington, at the epicenter of Philadelphia’s opioid crisis, elected officials cut funding for a syringe exchange, urged a landlord to stop renting space to a harm-reduction program, and advocated for restrictions on how and where medical providers operate.

Amid intense debate during a new mayor’s first term, Kensington politicians have argued that some neighborhood programs for people with addiction are not “good neighbors” and place undue burdens on the area’s permanent residents.

But others providing services to people in addiction see a concerted effort to curtail their work, and they say City Hall’s approach will only worsen the crisis and further harm the neighborhood.

Prevention Point, the Kensington-based public health organization, is particularly in the crosshairs of the new restrictions. This summer, it lost about $1 million in city funding to provide sterile syringes. Recently, the city zoning board ruled that the nonprofit could host only one medical provider at a time at its Kensington offices, which would effectively change how it has long operated.

Have the “harm reduction” programs in Kensington actually worked? The newspaper’s Editorial Board told readers that “Harm reduction must be part of efforts to end Kensington drug market: These services have their fair share of critics within the neighborhood, but they help keep people alive who are struggling with addiction,” assuming that it is an unambiguously good thing to keep junkies alive.

I know: I’m an [insert slang term for the rectum here] for even raising such a question, but, as Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Perhaps relying on a misunderstanding of Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the progressive left can hold that if they just keep doing the same thing — albeit spending more of Other People’s Money while doing so — their oh-so-noble policies will work where they haven’t worked before. The progressive left are complaining that more conservative urban policies won’t work, but they are being implemented because liberal and progressive policies didn’t work! Perhaps, just perhaps, rescuing drug addicts from the consequences of their actions does not serve the community well.

We previously reported on reporter Anna Orso‘s unfortunately limited-to-subscribers Earth Day article telling readers that there is “intense disagreement” over whether the Mayor’s “strategy can be effective:”

It wasn’t that long ago that the mayor of Philadelphia wanted to open a supervised drug consumption site and City Council was passing legislation to make it harder for police to arrest people for nonviolent crimes.

But along with a new class of leaders, the political tenor in the deeply Democratic city has decidedly shifted.

If “the political tenor in the deeply Democratic city has decidedly shifted,” perhaps it is because the city government tried progressive policies so diligently under previous mayor Jim Kenney, and the results were disastrous. The progressive policies didn’t work.

Remember how the government of Mexico used street scenes from Kensington in their own anti-drug use advertising? That’s how bad things got under Mayor Jim Kenney and his “harm reduction” policies.

Mrs Mullins’ policies seem to have the support of most of the City Council. From the main article cited:

Another harm-reduction group, Savage Sisters, is now operating from a van after losing its storefront in Kensington. This spring, City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who represents parts of the neighborhood, urged a Kensington landlord not to renew the lease.

Now the council is considering new limits on outreach operations that provide medical care and distribute supplies from vehicles. A number of providers who serve people with addiction, including Temple Health and Project HOME, utilize mobile clinics to reach people who wouldn’t otherwise seek medical care at a traditional doctor’s office.

The bill would prohibit them from parking on residential streets, near schools, or within 100 feet of one another in the neighborhood, which is home to one of the largest open-air drug markets in the country.

There’s more at the original.

These proposed rules are a kind of ticky-tacky way to hamper but not outlaw the “harm reduction” programs, and perhaps that’s the only way the Mayor can do things, but they have to be done: the nice guy policies of the left have failed, utterly failed.

We can’t know how well, or how poorly, the mayor’s policies are going to work; drug addiction is a horrible, horrible problem. But we do know one thing: going easy on drug problems has not worked.