San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Hillary Ronen introduced a law on Wednesday that would allow a nonprofit to open a facility where people can use drugs under medical supervision.
If passed by the Board of Supervisors, the law would ostensibly allow a nonprofit to operate a drug-consumption site using private funding, following a model first implemented in New York City in 2021.
In a press release, Breed’s office said that the city is barred from permitting such a site under a 2020 ordinance that restricted a consumption site from opening until state and federal legal barriers were resolved.
Breed and Ronen introduced new legislation that would repeal the earlier law, and asked Board President Aaron Peskin to expedite the new legislation so nonprofits can open sites more quickly.
“In addition to opening up these sites, we have to work with law enforcement to close the open-air drug markets and ensure that our neighborhoods feel improvements as we bring these resources to bear,” Breed said in a statement.
Safe-consumption sites are barred under federal law, and Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation last year that would have legalized the sites under state law.
But several supervisors spoke out against Breed last year after she appeared to pause a plan by the Department of Public Health to open 12 drug-consumption sites across six neighborhoods.
A nonprofit called the Gubbio Project has said that it’s capable of opening a safe-consumption site at a church in the Mission neighborhood. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation also proposed opening a safe-consumption site at 444 Sixth St., according to public records viewed by The Standard.
The Tenderloin Center, a safe-consumption site that operated for just over 11 months in San Francisco last year, closed in December amid controversy over client outcomes and its impact on the surrounding neighborhood.
A legal case involving a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that attempted to open a site in 2018 may provide federal guidelines for operating these sites legally. But the Department of Justice has repeatedly delayed a determination in the case.
“The opioid epidemic continues to wreak havoc on our streets and claim the lives of far too many San Franciscans,” said City Attorney David Chiu in a statement. “To save lives, I have fully supported a nonprofit moving forward with New York City’s model of overdose prevention centers. Repealing this ordinance is one step towards that goal.”
It could the public more good if they had public bathrooms instead of the homeless drug users defecating on the side walk like dogs
ReplyDeleteYa think…
DeleteBackwards world we're living in. Let's continue to enable drug use and homelessness. California is the model for a failed state.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing it’s “enabling” is surviving. There is no broad ‘drug crisis’. Just a fentanyl crisis.
Delete5:37 Then what’s your solution? Opioid epidemic has hit red states even harder.
DeleteCalifornia is a failing region but that’s because of status quo policies, not left or right. California is run by the establishment-type politicians, not progressives and certainly not libertarians. The “democrats” that supposedly run the state are not real democrats, they’re corporate politicians. Meaning continued war on drugs and continued unfettered capitalism. California isn’t made for either of those things. It’s like putting a square peg in a… well, you know the rest. Certain FEDERAL policies perform much more poorly in certain states because of the cultural and economic realities there. War on drugs may not be best for somewhere like West Virginia but it’s certainly not utterly destroying the state. When you apply those same ‘war on drugs’ policies to somewhere like California, Oregon or Washington though (places with real palpable drug scenes) then you see the disaster start to form and see how truly destructive those policies are.
Your thinking is antiquated and failed
DeleteBut are these sites providing clean drugs? Doesn’t sound like it.. Because that’s the only thing that will save this country at this point. The people injecting multiple times a day and have very high tolerances aren’t really the ones I’m most worried about. What about normal drug users? Why is it so hard for this society to not just look at the problem with the drugs themselves? Our society is completely pharmacologically illiterate and now it’s crumbling all because the people in charge don’t know how to pick up a damn book and educate themselves… It doesn’t take a genius to understand that providing people with access to oxycodone/heroin/hydromorphone instead of dirty underworld fent would save countless lives.
ReplyDeleteOffers clean drugs?? Are you looking? Yes they are tested and government certified just like alcohol and Marijuana. This is the government taking over the drug game and creating more addicts. We have had safe injection sights and government methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin offered on the streets of Vancouver for years. Nothing is better. Its only got worse. The politicians got a pay raise and more tax money. They said they saved lives but this has encouraged more people to use and become addicted. But the addicts got a clean line for dope. Bring ur friends for a discount. So fucked
Delete7:20 they offer the intravenous users test kits for their substances. I feel for the junkies who don't want to be junkies but don't know anything else, the ones begging to quit but still using. I feel for the sellers who don't want to sell but don't know what else will make money like dope, even so they feel bad and sell it. Feel bad for the cops wasting their entire life just like junkies chasing the drug knowing they aren't actually doing anything. Drugs are terrible
DeleteThe problem with providing “clean drugs” is sustainability (supply)..
DeleteWhat to do with addicts.Feed them to sharks? Build prisons to house them,but at what cost,you have to house and feed them.Helping them with their problem helps.Help provides less dirty needles,perhaps less overdose,cleaner drugs,maybe lessen dosage.It will help but not solve it,there is no solve it all solution,but at least.Rehabilitation helps, enforcement helps.Maybe a many pronged solution will solve a lot of it at least.
DeleteDecriminalization helps too, gradually,learn as it goes along.
Delete8:07 “We have had safe injection sights and government methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin offered on the streets of Vancouver for years.”
DeleteThat’s a bunch of BS
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DeleteHere's 1 heroin supplier/compassion club in Vancouver. There are many more smarty pants
Delete10:39 That link goes nowhere number one, and number two; if heroin was widely available people would not be choosing a shitty drug like fentanyl which only last 2 hours and has less euphoria and more respiratory depression. And clean coke? GTFO
DeleteThey’ve done programs in Canada where they use pure heroin or hydromorphone to help wean addicts off and this has proven to be majorly successful but if you think that heroin is widely available at legitimate clinics in places like Vancouver which are being hit hard with fent then you’re insane.
Let them all shoot up and OD how about that that's the only way to clean it up. We should use the Taliban they force people to get clean
ReplyDeleteThat is so disgusting..all drug users should be sent to tent city jails in the desert
ReplyDeleteFitting username
DeleteDefine “drug”
DeleteFucking liberals and their diabolical and disgusting “ideas.” Kinda like trying to pass gun laws that only affect the average citizen, but don’t enforce current gun laws, and don’t prosecute criminals with illegal possessing guns. Disarm the regular population!!!
ReplyDelete2:17 Both guns and drugs should be legal. Go cry
DeleteIt's the medical approach. Not the "liberal" approach. What our country has done traditionally has failed miserably. Time to join the rest of the planet
Delete9:45 People love politicizing science
DeleteSchools should be next. Will be less truancy. Too many dying from overdoses and getting infectious diseases from dirty needles and pipes. The student just needs to ask for a pipe or needle break while in class.
ReplyDeleteNice vision. I think students will be able to vape crack fentanyl in class without leaving. And needle breaks! Are you kidding me, bang that shit in your desk ... Why do you think they make the little cubby holes for?
DeleteWhat gang gets to sling drugs outside these shooting galleries? Lucrative franchise. Could even sell preloaded syringes.
ReplyDelete