Mayor Breed on SF drug crackdown: Folks rejecting treatment can't “remain on the street causing harm”
Giovanni Bellini: Drunkenness of Noah, 1515. Public Domain
SFPD recently arrested 450 publicly intoxicated drug users in a targeted three-month clampdown on the open-air drug trade. As KRON4 reports, most of the arrested refused the City's offer of treatment services, which highlights how public safety and personal welfare may hinge on “the threat of jail time” (quoting Sheriff Miyamoto). Comments from Mayor Breed and Miyamoto below.
San Francisco Police Department officers arrested 450 alleged drug users under public intoxication laws for openly consuming drugs and being under the influence in public....
Every person who was detained under public intoxication laws was offered services for treatment, but the vast majority of drug users declined to accept, city officials said.
Mayor London Breed wrote, “We want people to get help. City health and homelessness outreach teams will continue routine daily outreach to offer services and treatment linkages. But when people don’t accept help, we can’t continue to let them remain on the street causing harm to themselves and to others.”
Between January and July, 473 people died from drug overdoses in San Francisco, according to a report from the chief medical examiner.
“We refuse to sit on the sidelines as the fentanyl crisis intensifies,” said SFPD Police Chief Bill Scott. “The introduction of this poison into our drug supply has changed the game and we’re responding. Anyone who seeks to profit from selling drugs in our city will be held accountable.”
“We are aggressively targeting drug dealers who prey on those suffering from substance use disorder,” said Sheriff Paul Miyamoto. “We are also focusing on drug users because it is not humane or compassionate to allow them to languish on our streets controlled by their addictions. Justice-involved persons with substance use disorder sometimes need the threat of jail time to compel them to remain in programs that successfully address the root causes of addiction.”
This article originally appeared in KRON4. Read the whole thing here.
Read more about SF’s crisis of substance abuse here.
Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity
Opp Now enthusiastically welcomes smart, thoughtful, fair-minded, well-written comments from our readers. But be advised: we have zero interest in posting rants, ad hominems, poorly-argued screeds, transparently partisan yack, or the hateful name-calling often seen on other local websites. So if you've got a great idea that will add to the conversation, please send it in. If you're trolling or shilling for a candidate or initiative, forget it.