Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Advocates of government-run drug use sites say they will reduce surrounding drug use, dealing, and violence, but San Francisco's experiment shows the opposite, with a homicide, OD death of 16 year-old girl, and the shooting of neighborhood ambassador occurring since its opening

Defenders of @LondonBreed say we just need to give the supervised drug use site time to work, but the open air drug dealing and drug use around the UN Plaza, where the fentanyl & meth smoking lounge is located, has only gotten worse.

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1495614938106466308?s=20&t=eZkx9TAi-oT0YQKRVttu6A

San Francisco Mayor @LondonBreed said

"When someone is openly using drugs on the street we're going to give them the option of... treatment... But if they refuse, we're not going to allow them to continue using on the street."

https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1473745790606581760?s=20&t=UKwLIcx5yjQJLzT1h8whWw

But, just one month later, she said, “We can’t control who does or doesn’t, do or do not use drugs at any given location."

Breed caved to the progressives

And now the open drug scene that was confined to the Tenderloin has taken over UN Plaza & SoMa

kron4.com/news/bay-area/…

San Francisco has known for years that "safe" drug use sites attract addicts

When I visited one last December, we discovered a man with a broken hip sleeping in the middle of the street amidst needles and his own waste

Compassion blinds SF to unintended consequences

San Francisco neighborhood ambassadors @UrbanAlchemyUA graciously showed me the city's "Safe Sleeping Site" for the homeless even though I criticize it in "San Fransicko" as pathological altruism

I like UA practitioners but left even more convinced that the experiment must stop

Part of the reason I liked Urban Alchemy practitioners was for their honesty

They've saved many & seen many die

Many explained why they had to be arrested to escape addiction

All of them thought more should be done to get the street addicts they clean up after into recovery

"Advocates for the homeless" in San Francisco and other cities defend the right of people to buy and use drugs on the sidewalks even though it's directly under the apartments in which poor immigrant kids live

SF's solution: hire @UrbanAlchemyUA to clean up after them in the AM

The San Francisco Coalition for Homelessness criticizes even Urban Alchemy for ostensibly being rough with street addicts

In truth, the Coalition has for decades demanded no consequences for public camping, open drug use, or much else, even though the victims are poor immigrants

What happened to the man with the broken hip?

San Francisco's Homeless Outreach Team came by, and we thought they were going to take care of him

But one week later, he was still there

https://twitter.com/kaisparnas/status/1476029475573751809?s=20&t=eZkx9TAi-oT0YQKRVttu6A

Is he the same man whose photograph was taken by @gabriellelurie in 2019 on Larkin Street and selected by @bariweiss for my piece for her?

bariweiss.substack.com/p/slow-motion-…

Now @LondonBreed is saying the police will arrest drug users, but with the usual wish-wash

Arrests will be “on a case by case basis and it really would be based on behavior and discretion...It’s not our intention to arrest people for using”

🙄

sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F…

Is it progress that San Francisco officials now acknowledge that laws exist & could be enforced?

“Carroll said police could enforce laws against drug dealing, use and a controversial ordinance that bans sitting & lying on sidewalks and generally affects people who are homeless.”

I’ll be withholding judgement this time on the latest promise by @LondonBreed to enforce the law

https://twitter.com/shellenbergermd/status/1490702680645201920