The Denver City Council wants to make it easier for illegal drug addicts to get their fix — but harder for law-abiding Denver motorists to get a tank of gas.
That’s no joke. And it speaks volumes about what ails Denver City Hall nowadays.
That’s not to say everyone on the council is in synch with such upside-down policymaking. But a majority seems to have fallen through the looking glass into a wonderland where it all makes sense — to them.
On Monday, eight of 13 council members voted to let Denver’s so-called needle exchanges — where addicts can get free, fresh syringes to shoot up their poison of choice — locate as close to schools and day cares as they want. Right next door, if they wish.
Current Denver law reasonably requires the exchanges to be at least 1,000 feet from schools and day-care centers. That’s a standard feature of zoning codes in other cities and hardly is a lot to ask.
Indeed, it’s a modest restriction on a supposed community service that, by definition, serves people who are breaking the law. Needle exchanges, in fact, shouldn’t be tolerated at all. Touted as an effort to curb the spread of hepatitis, the exchanges only make it easier for addicts to stay on a self-destructive path that likely will end in an overdose. That’s not to mention the spent syringes and other drug debris that end of up in parks and playgrounds.