SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz County may become one of a handful of counties across the state authorized to establish legalized drug injection havens under legislation working its way through the State Assembly.

Assembly Bill 186 would let select counties establish facilities where drug users’ may inject their illegal drugs in controlled health care facilities. Bill supporters, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of California and the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Program Executives, suggest such a program may reduce public drug use, discarded syringes, HIV and hepatitis infections and overdose deaths — as well as offering treatment referrals.

Despite the county’s future potential access to such a facility, several observers the Sentinel spoke to on Wednesday expressed reservations at the proposal.

Analicia Cube, a founder of the community group Take Back Santa Cruz, said this week that she did not want Santa Cruz County, and likely the city of Santa Cruz, to be the state’s “test monkey” for new ideas that she said often failed to pan out. She pointed to impacts on the neighborhoods surrounding such a facility — whether be a rise in property theft or drug dealers flocking to the concentration of buyers.

“My main concern is this: Do we here at Santa Cruz County want to be sending out a message that if you want to take drugs safely, this is the place to travel to,” Cube said. “This doesn’t solve that problem. All this does is sets up a place for people to take drugs that they bought with your money.”

Santa Cruz was included as one of the target counties for the legislation, said Christian Burkin, communications director for bill author Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, D-Stockton, due to its high opioid overdose rates in recent years. The bill, initially introduced in January, was amended late last month to list eight approved counties.

From 2006 to 2013 in Santa Cruz County, for every 10,000 residents, there were an average 5.1 overdoses, according to the California Department of Public Health. In 2016, the county experienced 53 drug-related deaths, down slightly from 58 in 2015, Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Chris Clark said. In both years, heroin was the leading drug involved, Clark said.

In an effort to address the local opioid crisis, the county took part in a recent pilot program to introduce a nasal spray designed to stop or reverse the effects of opioid and heroin overdose. The pilot came about with the help of a grant obtained by drug treatment facility Janus of Santa Cruz. Reached for comment on Wednesday, Janus CEO Rod Libbey said he was unable to take a public position on political issues without a vote from his board of directors.

County Supervisor John Leopold, who serves as the Board of Supervisors’ chairman, said it would be “incredibly premature” to weigh in on a safe drug injection center.

“This isn’t coming from the ground up, it’s coming from the legislation down,” said Leopold, who had first heard of the city’s inclusion in the bill Wednesday.

Santa Cruz resident David Gianniani, a former drug addict who is about to reach his 27th year sober, said he’s worried that programs such as a safe injection site may serve as drug addiction enabling and end up being a missed opportunity for proactive treatment referrals. Gianniani is a member of Take Back Santa Cruz’s year-old Recovery Team, advocating for reforms locally related to drug addiction issues.

“There’s a lot of good that could be done in any of these programs. We miss the boat when we don’t have some kind of services attached to this that have a mandatory nature,” Gianniani said, suggesting visits to drug counselors or Narcotics Anonymous meetings. “If we’re going to give something, there’s an excellent opportunity to ask for something in return that may turn the lights on for someone, whoever it is, that’s stuck in the cycle of addiction.”

Leopold, who served as executive director for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project in the 1990s, said he has seen other “harm reduction” methods of dealing with disease and substance abuse, including clean needle exchanges, used effectively locally.

“Santa Cruz is a great laboratory for innovative ideas. An innovative idea doesn’t mean it’s something that we would do. Not every idea is a great idea,” Leopold said. “To look at this, we would have to do serious research, have conversations with public health experts, understand where it’s been used somewhere in the world and try to make an assessment whether that’s something we would even be interested in.

AB 186 AT A GLANCE

• Legalizes the establishment of adult supervised injection services programs.

• Applies to Alameda, Fresno, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Mendocino, San Francisco, San Joaquin and Santa Cruz counties.

• Requires an annual report to the city, county, or city and county, as specified.

• Protects injection program operators and users from criminal sanctions.

• Offers sterile supplies and access and referrals to addiction treatment services, medical services and social services.

• Provides for overdose treatment.

• Requires “reasonable” security of program site and establishment of good neighbor policy to address neighborhood concerns and complaints.

• Next: Assembly Committee on Public Safety.

• Information: leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.