Oakland's lax drug and encampment laws propagated dystopian “land of milk and fentanyl”?
Image by Wikimedia Commons: Domenico di Michelino’s Dante and His Poem
Neighbors Together Oakland founder Seneca Scott analyzes how when cities are gentle on policing public intoxication, drug possession, and unsafe homeless encampments, they become magnets for “drug tourists” who seek consequence-free lifestyles. And some—including Mayor Mahan—fear San Jose is headed there, too. A Washington Examiner excerpt below.
"Oakland and San Francisco have become the promised land of milk and fentanyl, and people are coming here," Neighbors Together Oakland founder Seneca Scott said, according to a report.
"People who are homeless in Oakland now typically are not from here. They're drug tourists."
One particularly bad area is "Fentanyl Island," a West Oakland area marked with burned-out cars and open-air drug sales.
"They're coming here for the safe and easy access to their drug of choice and the ability to also steal to support those habits because there's no rule of law," Scott said.
From 2015 to 2022, the population of homeless residents grew to 5,000 in Oakland, the report noted.
In Alameda County, the greater Oakland area, the homeless population grew to 9,700....
"A big part of Oakland’s homeless crisis are open-air drug markets and our permissiveness of RV parking and basically anything goes for selling drugs," Scott said.
"It's created unlivable situations."
This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner. Read the whole thing here.
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