Addicts pick their poison

Smoking crack OK at ‘inject’ sites

People are a owed to bring the substance that they prefer touse...and consume [it] in the manner o their choice — Site director Kailin See

Smoking crack is officially sanctioned at the “safe injection sites” Mayor de Blasio brought to Manhattan this week in a move that infuriated the sites’ neighbors — and has at least one business owner packing his bags.

“People are allowed to bring the substance that they prefer to use here, and they are permitted to consume the substance in the manner of their choice,” East Harlem site director Kailin See confirmed.

“We are there to make sure that no medical emergency occurs and to connect them into care if they need that,” she said, adding that many of her clients use drugs laced with fentanyl, including heroin, cocaine, crack, methamphetamine and K2.

The nonprofit is one of two in upper Manhattan that became the country’s first legal shooting galleries when they opened Tuesday.

And they have had an immediate effect — but maybe not the one de Blasio, who has just four weeks left in office, was hoping for as business owners still left standing try and dig out from the pandemic.

One merchant near the Washington Heights center said the junkie haven is forcing him to relocate his retail shop in another neighborhood.

“Now they’re going to promote the drugs, and people don’t have to worry if they get sick or they’re going to die because they’re gonna have medical people that are gonna take care of them so that they don’t overdose and die so that they can do their drugs again tomorrow?” the shop owner said.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” the frustrated businessman said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear that his shop would be vandalized.

In East Harlem, Camila Casto, 35, said she opposed the site.

“Some people argue that drugs shouldn’t be stigmatized. I disagree. The mentality needs to be that drugs are evil, drugs are criminal, drugs will kill you — not drugs are OK if used in a controlled environment,” Casto said.

“What kind of example does it set for my daughter when she sees people walking out of here all wobbly from just having shot up, with bags of free needles in their hands?” she said.

Another neighbor, Bob Evans, 54, agreed. “I know that drug use is a huge problem right now and that drugs are easy to get from dealers. I even know a few dealers myself, but I think the criminal aspect keeps the number of addicts from being a lot higher,” he told The Post.

“Also, I’m not sure an injection site is the best thing for my community. People who shoot up inside here tend to hang around, kind of like people outside a bar on a Saturday night. These aren’t the kinds of people you want hanging around on your block,” he said.

A rep for the Washington Heights CORNER Project on West 180th Street confirmed that clients are not barred from using any type of substance including crack.

De Blasio and his health officials have touted the lifesaving effects of the centers but when asked by The Post Wednesday, they couldn’t cite any specific studies backing up that claim.

A rep for Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi later sent The Post a 2021 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that was inconclusive about such sites’ effectiveness.

New York’s worst mayor ever just couldn’t resist giving the town one more kick on the way out the door, in search of progressive cred: a pair of first-in-the-nation, citysponsored, bring-your-own-drugs, no-questions-asked, no-judgments-rendered shooting galleries.

Why on earth is the city facilitating, heck, encouraging this kind of irresponsible behavior by making these centers available? What kind of message does that send?

Hizzoner says the point is to cut down on overdose deaths, of which there were more than 2,000 in the city during the fiscal year ending April 1, up 40 percent from the previous year.

To that end, two shooting galleries have already opened, one in East Harlem and the other in Washington Heights, and at least two more are planned. Clean needles and other amenities are provided, though addicts must supply their own drugs. Which means they’ll be scrounging, stealing and who-knows-what-else to pay for their fix.

Sure, there’s not much sadder than the slowmotion suicide of hard-drug addiction. Who doesn’t want to prevent fatal ODs? But outright municipal abetment is something else, and this is precisely what the city is doing.

Officials claim to be offering addicts treatment and other assistance. But how realistic is that, given that the point of the exercise is to show up, shoot up and nod off all with the city’s moral seal of approval? Indeed, there’s no evidence these prevention centers actually work even in curbing deaths.

The city could be stepping up its emphasis on, say, counseling, methadone, rehab programs. Or cracking down on drug traffickers. Cleaning up the streets and enforcing low-level offenses, so there’s a sense that crime — including illegal drug sales and possession — will not be tolerated. Alas, no such luck.

No, Mayor de Blasio’s latest brainstorm isn’t a solution, it’s a surrender. And the city, and even the drug addicts themselves, will pay a steep price.