San Francisco Officials Beg for “Ideas” on How to Handle City’s Massive Drug Problem
90 days to brainstorm about how to deal with death and crime waves….with nobody going to jail. Good luck with that.
How it started: San Francisco began experimenting with “safe injection sites” to help alleviate the staggering number of overdose deaths.
It worked as expected…by anyone with an ounce of common sense.
Images taken by DailyMail.com show a woman slumped over in a wheelchair, her pants down around her ankles, preparing to inject a needle into her thigh. The woman sitting on the ground next to her has a needle to her neck.
Many others are sitting on the ground among trash, empty food containers and dirty blankets, as they fumble in with drug paraphernalia in the cold weather.
The center, which opened on January 18, is part of the San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s Tenderloin Emergency Intervention plan introduced last year. The linkage center is located at 1172 Market Street, in the United Nations Plaza. The supervised drug consumption area is an outdoor fenced section of the linkage center – just blocks away from the city’s court house, San Francisco City Hall and the Civic Center. Aerial footage of the area shows the city’s Pioneer Monument overrun with homeless tents. at new ‘linkage center’ in San Francisco last week show an open air illicit drug consumption site that is now littered with needles and crowded with addicts shooting up in broad daylight.
How it’s going: San Francisco officials are begging for ideas to develop a ‘soft touch’ scheme to deal with the city’s relentless drug crisis – insisting that under their plan, ‘nobody’s going to jail.’
With nearly 1,700 fatal overdoses since the start of 2020, San Francisco’s drug crisis has resulted in almost double the death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June, the city’s mayor, London Breed, announced that their notorious taxpayer-funded open-air drugs market will close at the end of the year.
Tuesday’s plan, named ‘San Francisco Recovers,’ appeared to be a return to the open-air market system, however.
Their plan promoted ‘supervised consumption sites where drug users can safely use substances under medical supervision to prevent accidental overdose deaths.’
They featured a range of other requests for handling the crisis, but instead of mapping a way to achieve them instead requested the 21 city departments and six city commissions come up with ideas for them within 90 days.
Matt Dorsey, a supervisor, said that the goals were deliberately ‘soft touch.’
‘Soft-touch’ San Francisco leaders now call for ‘IDEAS’ to end open-air drug markets https://t.co/STCsXbv9Qk
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) September 8, 2022
Reasonable people are skeptical that any idea devoid of substantial criminal penalties will work.
‘Soft-touch’ San Francisco leaders now call for ‘IDEAS’ to be given to them to end open-air drug markets ‘without anyone going to jail’: Overdose deaths hit 1,700 since 2020 as users run rampant across the city. SF is willing to try anything to stop crime — except make arrests.
— George L. Duncan (@GeorgeLDuncan) September 8, 2022
In other news, which may possibly be related, billboards warn Los Angeles and San Francisco residents about moving to Texas.
While the billboard shows no obvious political affiliation or sponsor, some Redditors speculated that the billboard is trying to send a message, possibly coming from strongly conservative Texans who are trying to stop the proliferation of liberal Californians moving to Texas, especially with the looming gubernatorial elections in November. Others speculate that the billboard came from Californians who are attempting to slow the mass exodus of residents packing up and leaving for Texas.
The Los Angeles billboard is located at the intersection of Barham and Cahuenga boulevards, overlooking the 101 Freeway. The San Francisco billboard, located near the intersection of Folsom Street and 7th Street, is leased to advertisers by FoxPoint Media, a billboard advertising company based out of Chicago.
I wish San Francisco officials tons of good luck with their quest, and may God have mercy on the law-abiding residents of the city.
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Youtuber kimgary has video after video of Philly’s Keningston Avenue, the nation’s largest open-air drug market.
Com’n, SanFran, are you gonna come in #2? You can do it and become #1 drug-head land.
All brought to you by the DEMOCRAT PARTY.
Step #1: step aside and allow adults to take over.
Step #2: FEMA camps
Step #3: start sorting out those who need a break and WANT to get back.
Step #4: institutionalize those whose brains are hopelessly rewired by their drugs.
Step #4: death penalty for drug dealers, especially those who enable the fentanyl industry.
Step #5: Finish the wall
They could start by making drug use as serious a crime as not getting a covid shot, or not wearing a covid mask in public.
Nobody goes to jail? Well, unless politicians go to jail there will be no deterrent.
comments on the article linked about the billboard are pretty funny. They range on both sides, but this was my favorite, because it is so true!
“It’s pretty interesting that no one can figure out which “side” is behind these ridiculous wastes of money. As soon as someone does figure it out, we’ll all know how to react!”
Sometimes it’s tough to determine who is behind obvious but inconvenient and embarrassing statements of truth like, “it’s OK to be white.” You might end up doing stupid things like violently objecting to the phrase “all lives matter.”
How about jail for dealers and institutionalized treatment for addicts ?
Jail does not work for addicts. Drugs are easier to get in jail than on the street. Addiction is a very nasty disease that takes more than “willpower” to recover from. It takes significant medical and psychological help, and even then the success rate is low.
Fentanyl is a separate, tangental, issue. It is turning even low-level drugs into deadly cocktails and is the number one cause of death right now for people under 45. The criminal justice system is not the place for dealing with addiction. It does not address the fundamental issues involved in it and puts people back on the street, still addicted but who may not have used and gives them no tools to get/stay sober.
I am a big fan of a growing movement to make the sale of any drug with a Fentanyl additive an automatic first-degree murder/attempted murder charge with a very long minimum-mandatory sentence.
Time for a major public service messaging drive to make it plain that getting addicted to most modern ‘recreational’ drugs such as Fentanyl or Meth is a death sentence. It’s only as matter of time and place.
Yes, treatment might help but while modern society won’t like this, there is no magic pill, no easy cure. It requires massive willpower, pain, time, probably professional help, and it has a less than stellar success rate.
Maybe, just maybe, if we are honest about it and vocal about it we can keep people from getting hooked in the first place.
“”Drugs are easier to get in jail than on the street.””
There is no environment in the world where it would be easier to control access to illegal drugs IF the “authorities” so desired and had the cojones to take direct action.
They never have and never will. That’s just one reason why the concept of “rehabilitation” is such a complete and total failure in our current criminal justice system.
Drugs? Prisons are so incompetently run that they often can’t keep out actual guns.
Looks like you have a soft spot for addicts. Too bad you don’t feel the same about college girls on a swim team.
They are already essentially practicing neglectful euthanasia. The next step is suicide booths with the drugs of choice for free, and new cremation facilities.
Those cremation facilities had better be electric using solar-sourced watts, or there will be hell to pay.
Aren’t we having a food shortage? Where’s my copy of “To Serve Man?”
Partner with the State to build out a camp in more remote area. That frees up the shelters for local hard luck cases. Provide treatment options. Those who get clean and are still functional can graduate. House the remainder away from society. Be as gentle as possible but as firm as required to accomplish these ends.
Work farms / work camps that have a very regimented schedule , seven days a week. You have to instill some level of consistency to make a radical change in lifestyle. Keep them busy. Animals have to be taken care of daily, they don’t take days off. They don’t have be behind bars but they need ongoing, consistent supervision.
Make all drugs free. And increase the purity and dosage to lethal levels.
It might take more manpower to shovel the bodies into the incinerators, so divert funds intended for the safe injection sites to disposal facilities.
Don’t forget clean, free needles!!!
The 21 city departments will suggest 22 city departments will be needed and the six city commissions will suggest a seventh city commission.
Let’s form a committee to study that…
So basically, their plan is to bring back opium dens in San Francisco?
They have been told for years how to fix it. They refuse to enact those policies. So I don’t see the point in repeating myself.
This is just the prelude to another self inflicted Democrat “crisis” that requires a federally funded solution.
They need new liberal ideas? Hollywood’s literally right down the road! Isn’t that here all the best new liberal ideas come out of? You people talk amongst yourselves. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
There is a complete, overnight solution at hand. Offer them all free heavily Fentanyl-laced drugs. All problems solved in a jiff.
Maybe if you stopped coddling and got these people the help they need.
Is the city/county still handing out stipend checks to the urban outdoorsmen?
When I lived in Concord, I’d ride the BART over to SF, go to a really GREAT barber shop on Castro Street, then go to a coffee shop around the corner to sit with folks and chat about this and that. One of my chat companions was an EMT. Boiling it down, he said their ambulances became coroner wagons the day after the checks came out. The money went straight into the arms of the payees, or, that one last massive drunk-fest ended up in poisoning.
I may get a lot of rocks thrown at me for this. but calling drunken-ness and drug addiction “diseases” is making excuses.
I am obese, and am looked down upon for it. It got me tossed out of the Navy, even though I never missed a day of duty.
Yet, the addicts and drunks were mollycoddled because they had a “disease”, and going through rehab – often more than once – was a promotion enhancement.
Please.
“It worked as expected…by anyone with an ounce of common sense.”
I would say it worked as planned.
I don’t believe in unintended consequences when everyone knows this is what will happen.
That means people in favor of this wanted it to happen.
In the military I was taught to (rhetorically) ask my commanders “What do you want the battlefield to look like when I’m done?”. In other words, what’s the actual goal here, what conditions define success?
This ‘plan’ is a self-licking ice cream cone if it doesn’t focus on preventing the illegal drug use in the first place. It’s also beyond belief that the city/state chooses to be responsible for supervising illegal behavior rather than ending it. What you are responsible for you are liable for and the word ‘illegal’ doesn’t mean only illegal for you and not the govt.
1) Put drug addicts in jail. If they’re on drugs and end up in jail it’s the addicted problem, not society’s.
And here’s the most controversial one:
2) Put Christianity and God back at the center of society. And this is coming from someone who is not religious. Secularism and liberty do not go hand in hand.
I am confident the Leftists will do neither one.
Well, you could tear down the city, rebuild and fill it with people from Switzerland.
Novel idea that I’m sure has never occurred to the idiots running that place. ENFORCE THE F*CKING LAW.
Like that fatal shot idea. Write on the syringe, the last one. See if you get any takers.
Got no idea, guess they will have to figure it out on their own
I guess the first step would be to NOT encourage it. Or am I going too fast for Democrats to follow?
That would be too harsh.
Let’s see, no jail time programs…hmmmm, oh wait, there’s already some of those…
1. Drug Courts. You don’t go to jail, instead you’re basically on probation specialized in drug issues.
2. Mandatory rehab stints.
Problem is, you have to back those up with jail time if the addict refuses or fails. The reason they are failing is actually very well established by the field of psychology. Studies of people who change find a VERY high correlation between initiating and sustaining change and two factors: Realization they have a problem, and Misery related to the problem. San Francisco has sought to mitigate the latter as much as possible, so they won’t see much change.
Just do the exact opposite of what you have been doing.
Make them join the military and go on the front lines.
Build a huge homeless camp out in the middle of the desert surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards. People soho violate vagrancy laws will have a bed in the camp. This will allow the police to enforce vagrancy laws.
People who violate vagrancy laws will be charged half of their welfare as rent.
Police should make regular sweeps through the homeless confiscating drugs and money.