Former Pennsylvania governor joins safe injection site effort

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Philadelphia nonprofit says it plans on opening the city's and possibly the country's first supervised drug injection site with the help of former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

The move comes days after California's governor vetoed legislation that would have given San Francisco some legal cover to open a safe injection site-- a place for people to use drugs under medical supervision.

They are illegal under federal law and the U.S. Attorney General's office has promised swift legal action against cities that open them. Philadelphia officials said they would support a site operated by a private entity.

Rendell bucked state and national laws to open the city's first needle exchange program when he was Philadelphia's mayor in the 1990s. He said Wednesday that he was willing to go to jail then and would be willing to go to prison now.