The Minneapolis City Council has voted to legalize drug paraphernalia despite the same measure being blamed for destroying Portland and San Francisco.
The ordinance, which passed 7-6 on Thursday, decriminalizes the possession of paraphernalia, such as needles and glass pipes.
It still criminalizes giving those items to minors.
Minnesota legalized paraphernalia two years ago. Minneapolis Councilmember Jason Chavez said the new rule would put the city on par with the state law.
'It alarms me that we can’t do that here in the city of Minneapolis,' councilwoman Aisha Chughtai said, according to The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Mayor Jacob Frey is expected to veto the proposal, as he has long supported other methods of dealing with the city's addiction problems.
He said he would be open to mobile medical units and housing where drugs would be allowed. He said he would not support allowing the city to become an open-air drug market that would make citizens feel unsafe and make transit worse.
'Compassion means meeting people where they’re at, but it doesn’t mean anything goes,' he told The Tribune.
Minneapolis' city council has voted to legalize drug paraphernalia, such as needles and glass pipes, despite watching it ravage Portland and San Francisco (pictured) for years
Mayor Jacob Frey is expected to veto the proposal, as he has said he supports other measures that do not make the city an open drug market
The Daily Mail has reached out to Frey's Office and city council for comment.
Similar laws were enacted in Portland and San Francisco. This has led to a boom in homelessness camps and open drug use popping up in both cities, leading many long-term residents to ditch downtown areas.
In February, a two-year-old girl was found surrounded by glass pipes, white powder, and infant formula, leading her to unintentionally ingest fentanyl.
Stevie Price had been dead for hours by the time police found her. Authorities said they believe the toddler had ingested fentanyl that had been left within her reach, in what they described as a 'filthy' San Francisco apartment.
Police arrested the girl's mother, Michelle Price, along with her boyfriend Steve Ramirez. Both have been charged with child endangerment.
The city's mayor, Daniel Lurie, has vowed to crack down on homelessness and crime, but the West Coast city is still struggling.
Two years into his term, residents insist that the city is still crumbling due to rampant drug use and out-of-control homelessness.
In his first year as mayor, Lurie reportedly decreased crime by 40 percent in Union Square and the Financial District.
However, overdose deaths in the city hit nearly 600 in 2025, according to the Medical Examiner's Office.
San Francisco launched an open drug market in 2021. The Tenderloin Linkage Center in San Francisco was billed as an avant-garde approach to tackling the city's drug epidemic, but only one out of 1,000 addicts actually sought treatment there.
The center cost a whopping $19million in city taxpayers' money.
Only a year into the project, the city announced it would not be renewing its lease for the site.
In 2023, Portland began handing out aluminum foil and straws to fentanyl smokers in an attempt to reduce harm.
But the drug problem and homelessness crises never got better, with people actively doing drugs on sidewalks in broad daylight, the Daily Mail observed in October.
The Daily Mail observed a woman repeatedly bashing herself in the head and carrying out the act of self-harm while under the influence in downtown Portland.
Citizen journalist Kevin Dahlgren and other locals told the Daily Mail that the middle-aged woman is regularly accosted by a group of unknown men.
San Francisco enacted a similar policy, leading to addicts living on the streets and doing drugs in broad daylight
Portland also enacted a similar policy and it left the city being ravaged by open drug markets that make residents feel unsafe
A man in Portland is seen injecting his leg with drugs on the sidewalk
They say she is taken to a nearby motel or apartment, where she is forced to shower, before being subjected to horrific sexual assaults.
Portland residents, specifically those in the Old Town area of the city, who know the woman said the group attacks can go on for days before she is dumped back on the streets.
Dahlgren said he fears the woman is also battling severe drug issues.
The Daily Mail also observed a man inhaling a bubbling substance from a scrap piece of aluminum. He said he was homeless after losing his job.
Another person broke into a vehicle, smashing the window, before being arrested.
'Crime out here is just really common, this is extremely common – you can usually hear the smashes, the police don't care – they're not going to stop them', Dahlgren told the Daily Mail.