Mayor Daniel Lurie refused today to commit to approaching the city’s opioid crisis with the “four pillars” plan suggested by Sup. Jackie Fielder, saying that he supports forced treatment and continued law enforcement efforts.
Sup. Jackie Fielder noted during Question Time that the city’s enforcement programs on Sixth Street and in Jefferson Square have just displaced drug dealers to the area of 16th and Mission.
Lurie has insisted that his police-heavy approaches are making a difference: “My administration will continue to make the message clear, if you are dealing drugs then we will come after you. … our operations have sent a clear message that drug dealers will find no safe haven.”
But his saturation raid last week at 16th and Mission resulted in four arrests and about an ounce of contraband.
And, Fielder said, if you go to that spot today, “you will see more of the same.” The city’s efforts, she said, “displace drug activity from block to block.”
Fielder pointed out that Zurich used to have the same, or worse problems as San Francisco, but after implementing a policy that relied on public-health approaches and prevention, as well as law enforcement, it’s now one of the safest cities in Europe.
Lurie responded that he wants to get people into treatment and the help they need—”when they are ready and when they need it the most.” That seems to suggest that he continues to support forcing people into treatment—which years of studies have shown doesn’t work.
Besides, the city has nowhere near the capacity to handle all the people who are seeking treatment, much less the people who could be forced into it.
Lurie told the supes he is sending a delegation, that includes representatives of the local Chamber of Commerce, to Washington to lobby for more funding for SF’s transit and COVID recovery needs. “When San Francisco succeeds, the United States succeeds,” he said.
Maybe the Trump Administration will listen to the Chamber of Commerce, but so far there are no signs that Trump will have any interest in helping San Francisco with anything.
Meanwhile: There is no effort at all to get the state Legislature to allow San Francisco to raise new revenue through anything but highly regressive taxes.
