SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) - Less than 10 days since San Francisco opened its new linkage center, part of the Tenderloin Emergency Initiative, reports of open drug use at the center have surfaced.
On Wednesday, Mayor London Breed neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, saying they can't control who uses drugs at such a location.
A place supposed to help people with recovery and wrap-around services, now at the center of controversy as reports of drug use have surfaced.
“We can't control who does or doesn't, do or do not use drugs at any given location. Our whole point of why we started this Linkage Center is to meet people where they are and try and get them the help and support that they need,” Mayor Breed said.
However, a former addict and now recovery advocate Tom Wolf says the linkage center is doing the exact opposite.
“In order to get someone in recovery, you have to help find the right environment for them to accept that help and how are they going to do that if the guy sitting next to you is smoking Meth? It's really really hard and it's already hard enough out on the streets to do that. Why are we making it so hard in the Linkage Center too?” Wolf said.
Wolf walked the facility on Tuesday and was disappointed by what he saw.
“I walked over to this area, this outside courtyard that they fenced off and you can kind of see through the fence and first thing I saw was two guys smoking fentanyl,” Wolf said.
Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, Keith Humphreys agrees, calling the center's mission and actions counterintuitive.
“What is the plan here? I mean if they end up wanting to set up say a supervised drug consumption site this is not the way to do it. You wouldn't mix it with the center where you're trying to get people into treatment. That should be somewhere else. That should be thought through what's going to be easiest for people to access? What's going to get them to stay on a good path and I just don't understand the disorganization,” Humphreys said.
Meanwhile, some addiction experts disagree calling the use of drugs a reality when on the road to recovery.
Others have also questioned the legality of the site if illicit drug use is taking place.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3rNtjJ6
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