SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- At a recent San Francisco Police Commission meeting, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said two weeks of arrest data from the crackdown on open-air drug use in the Tenderloin shows that of the 45 drug users arrested, only three people were residents of San Francisco.
Chief Scott said he is not quite sure what to make of that.
"I can give some anecdotal answers," Scott said. "I've talked to people and asked them why they chose to do it here. I've gotten answers like, 'drugs are cheap and readily available, and you got an environment where it is permitted.'"
"So what that tells us is that we've become a magnet, a regional magnet, and maybe even a national magnet," said San Francisco drug recovery advocate Tom Wolf.
It is something that Wolf says he has been trying to get SF city leaders to recognize, something that he views as a key aspect of the city's drug problem.
"The path that we've taken the past few years where it's kind of like where we are looking the other way at people using drugs on the street has sent a signal, and you see the results," said Wolf. "Now we have thousands of people on the street who are not from her using drugs out in the open, and they're doing all kinds of stuff including breaking the law to support their addictions."
San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey thinks the city is taking the wrong approach to address the drug crisis. He sent a statement that reads in part:
"Arresting street-level sellers and substance users does nothing to end the supply or demand of drugs, and incarceration actually increases the likelihood of overdoses. A public health response that includes overdose prevention centers is what experts say will be the only effective solution."
Wolf, a Tenderloin resident and recovering addict who has been arrested for drug use, says he is cautiously optimistic that Mayor London Breed's drug use detention program may send a different signal to those wanting to come to San Francisco to do drugs.
"They just can't come out here for a month or two and then leave," he said.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/ELBoCuR
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