The Board of Supes approved yet another War on Drugs resolution today with just two dissenting votes—a pattern that is becoming more and more common.
A move to suspend the Empty Homes Tax passed 9-2, with only Sups. Jackie Fielder and Shamann Walton in dissent. A measure allowing developers to convert offices to housing without paying inclusionary housing fees passed 9-2, with Fielder and Walton in dissent.
And now, the supes passed, with two dissenting votes, a measure that calls on the mayor to implement a “Drug Market Intervention Strategy.”
Only Fielder and Sup. Connie Chan voted against it.
Sup. Bilal Mahmood has already called on the city to hire the John Jay College professor who created the DMI concept.
A resident named Matthew Pancia has filed a complaint with the Ethics Commission, saying that the attempts by Mahmood and Sups. Matt Dorsey and Rafael Mandelman to interfere with a city contracting process violated the City Charter:
Supervisors are not permitted to “dictate, suggest, or interfere” with the Administration contracting with specific vendors or consultants. That would violate the non-interference clause of the City’s charter, Section 2.114
The DMI approach, as the Chron reported, goes like this:
During those interventions, which consisted of law enforcement officers, social service providers and the dealers’ friends and relatives, officers offered the nonviolent dealers an ultimatum. If they continued to deal, police had built criminal cases against them that they were ready to pursue. But if they agreed to walk away from dealing, the cases were suspended. The social service providers then offered to help the dealers make lifestyle changes through housing, drug treatment or employment assistance.
As we noted when the measure was before the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee:
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A significant number of the people selling drugs on the streets of SF are themselves victims of human trafficking. Others are addicts selling to support their own habits. Offering “lifestyle changes” in this climate is a bit of a stretch.
Oh, and where exactly are they going to get housing or treatment, when the city doesn’t have enough facilities to treat people who are seeking help on their own?
That was Fielder’s concern. “We have not scaled up respite and treatement,” she said. “An enforcement approach divorced from public health goals will lead to more arrests of drug users.” The Journal of the American Medical Association just released a study that shows:
The enforcement of drug distribution laws to increase public safety for residents in San Francisco may be having an unintended negative consequence of increasing opioid overdose mortality …. To reduce overdose mortality, it may be better to focus on evidence-based health policies and interventions.
Chan said the proposal “seems too oriented on a strategy by one individual … I have a lot more questions about this approach by one person in academia.”
Walton and Sup. Danny Sauter were both absent. But the pattern remained: Only two dissenting votes, as the city moves hard to the right.
