Posted on 06/20/2023 8:44:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last month San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the city would begin to crack down on the open-air drug markets that plague downtown. As I pointed out here, Breed’s planned announcement of the new approach was turned into a circus thanks to Democratic Socialist City Supervisor Dean Preston. Before the meeting was cut off by protesters shouting (and one throwing a brick) Breed said it was time for a change.
“We have tried over and over again,” Breed said at U.N. Plaza. “And what we are doing is not working. And in fact, our local resources have increased. But it has not dealt with the problem based on the magnitude of what we are experiencing. I run into people day in and day out in the Tenderloin, and they say, ‘London, we would have never been allowed to get away with this stuff back in the day.’ And the fact is, it’s time for a change. We want to get people help, but we will not continue to allow things to just occur as they have been.”
The battle between the mayor and the city supervisor continued. Last week, Preston challenged Breed to fund “wellness centers” another place for drug users similar to the linkage center which shut down last December. The linkage center was so named because it was supposed to link drug addicts to city services but after a year and $22 million spent, the experiment had accomplished very little. Staffers were able to reverse 300 overdoses of people who came to do drugs inside the linkage center but only 1% of visitors were referred for drug or mental health treatment. Breed responded to Preston’s demands by essentially calling him a white savior.
WATCH: SF Mayor @LondonBreed exchanged fiery words with Tenderloin Supe @DeanPreston at Tuesday’s @sfbos meeting as she defended the city’s arrests of drug users.
"Here we go, another white man talking about Black and brown people as if you’re the savior," Breed said. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/itqZe4jqJK
— The San Francisco Standard (@sfstandard) June 14, 2023
Over the weekend this story took another interesting turn. As police started arresting people using drugs on the street for the first time in a long time they noticed an unexpected pattern. Nearly all of the people they arrested were from out of town.
Nearly 95% of people arrested for drug use in San Francisco since May 30 are from out of town, Police Chief Bill Scott said at a public hearing this week, corroborating perceptions that many residents already have — that their city has become a magnet for the narcotics trade.
“Only three out of 45 list San Francisco as their address,” Scott said during a Police Commission meeting Wednesday, referring to arrests made by an eight-officer patrol unit in the Tenderloin and South of Market. While Scott said he was not surprised that so many people hailed from other cities, he said it’s a demographic figure his staff is “paying attention to.
The data, which fluctuates constantly, seems to capture a trend that many San Franciscans have long complained about, of people flocking to the Tenderloin to use drugs. Yet, the picture that Scott presented was stark enough to rattle some city officials.
City Supervisor Matt Dorsey published video of the police chief’s statement and called the information stunning. He added, “We should *not* be a destination for public drug use.”
I’d expect many of those who use drugs publicly to be from out of town, but I’m stunned by what @SFPDChief Scott reported here — only 3 of the 45 people arrested so far for public drug use have a San Francisco address.
We should *not* be a destination city for public drug use. pic.twitter.com/FQ42oAETdu
— Matt Dorsey (@mattdorsey) June 16, 2023
The story notes there is concern among those who object to the arrests of drug users (for public intoxication) that these numbers will add to the impetus to crack down on public drug use.
“There’s this theory of ‘drug tourism’ that’s been taking hold lately,” said Sara Shortt, coordinator of the Treatment on Demand Coalition, which has pushed back against city drug crackdowns. Shortt questioned San Francisco’s “immediate” fixation on the out-of-town demographic — one of many that police could have chosen to highlight, she said.
“I think it’s clear they’re trying to produce certain conclusions,” Shortt added.
The activists may not like it but the numbers are what they are. What they show is that people from out of town are coming to downtown San Francisco to buy drugs and use drugs. Why is that happening? Probably because the word has gone out over the past several years that no one is ever arrested for buying or using drugs downtown. In short, because the city’s policies have made it an attractive place for drug tourism.
The activists can’t have it both ways. If on the one hand they want to immediately put an end to these arrests and set up supervised drug consumption centers, then they can’t also pretend to be surprised to learn that people are coming into to town to use those services. If you subsidize “safe” drug consumption, you will get more of it.
It will take 5 years to get back to pre-pandemic levels, assuming there is a back to return to.
I hope we can return.
Sounds like discrimination against visitors. Wonder how that fits with their attempt to invite visitors to San Francisco?
Maybe some new T-shirts for tourists are in order: I went to San Francisco, and all I got was arrested.
Liberals think they are better and more compassionate,
They aren’t .
Real compassion is tough love and not allowing bad behavior .
Does that mean that the 42 who did not have a Frisco address were from out of town, or that they were Friscans who did not have a Frisco address?
Might some, if not most, have been living in cars, under stairwells, on a different planet, or camping outside doorways of former Union Square businesses all in Frisco?
Well if you’re a drug user, it’s better to be homeless in one of the richer cities in the US that has lax enforcement of drug laws.
As if everyone in the nation didn’t know where to go to get
drugs and be left alone for the last few years.
I don’t believe that 95% are from out of town. Democrat politicians lie about such things, trying to make their cesspools look a little better.
Fine. SF attracts them and there they are. Apparently the city “leaders” are too stupid to figure it out.
Or maybe it’s intentional, i.e: the Globalist WEF sends the out oft town creeps and bribes city officials to do nothing about it. After all, it’s time to bring America to it’s knees so those evil freaks can own everything. They’ve said as much. “You will own nothing and you will be happy,” Klaus Schwab said on a widely circulated video.
State should build a fenced-in rehab center out in the desert, half-way to Vegas. Non-state residents get a one-way ticket there and remain for six months of rough rehab. Second time picked up? A full year of rough rehab. They would eventually figure out a exit plan.
San Franciscans absolutely detest people calling their city "Frisco".
As a southern Californian, allow me to thank you enthusiastically and to encourage you by all means to keep it up.
These city "leaders" spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on free drug paraphernalia, sites to clean up with free sundries, latrines, phone use and medics, vans to pick them up and drop them off, etc. And they're so brain dead that they can't connect the dots...
Democrats are arrogant and destructive.
Uhhhh.... OK. I’m from out of Fairbanks myself. But you know, I’ve been here for 30 years. But I am here now, and I would assume that since I am here, I would be considered to be from here.
These bums are there in San Fran because they were attracted to it. They are there now so they are from San Fran. Don’t try to play this crap off like “it’s out of towners” or “Up-Country degen’s (Letter Kenny)” that are causing the problem.
Wait....
Weren’t they just recently encouraging drug use with free drugs and paraphernalia???
100% were in town.
Duh.
““Only three out of 45 list San Francisco as their address,””
Aren’t they “homeless”, therefore they have no address?
“And they’re so brain dead that they can’t connect the dots...”
The inability to connect the dots is the defining feature of liberals. Cause and effect is a foreign concept to them.
Didn't the Supervisor get the memo?! It is ray-cist to distinguish between San Franciscans and illegal aliens out-of-towners!
Regards,
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