Many of the SF Drug treatment programs need to be moved to Treasure Island and create a divide between users and drug dealers or the users triggers.

In reply to I’d Vote for Chris Daly Again.

While I agree that we need to fund drug treatment programs, I don’t much care about someone’s drug or alcohol use, as long as they can support themselves.

In reply to scott mansfield.

So, in other words, Scott, you actually don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.

Annika, thank you so much for actually doing real journalism.

In reply to Mike.

End cash payments because it makes sense to punish all poor people for what 10-20% of them do. why not apply that to politicians and lock them all up?

In reply to tomo.

Politically, that’s her aim.

Daniel Lurie must’ve hit a chord, because she’s now desperately trying to differentiate ideologically because she can’t beat him in competence.

Policy-wise, it isn’t capitalism on why we can’t do it in this city.

It’s because mayors come in using a playbook that doesn’t work except for politics.

They can’t keep their temptation to score an easy win, and, against advice from our own city agencies and analysts, fuck it all up.

This article is a bit vague. “Won’t work” it says, but it doesn’t mention the purpose. What if the objective is to encourage drug users to leave and to discourage drug users from coming? I think that is the intended goal. We can debate whether that is a worthy objective, but would this policy “work” to help reach it? I don’t know the answer, but I suspect it would get us at least part way there.

SF’s 2024 budget for the homeless is $423 million. I don’t think this includes state and federal money nor the money spent on police, EMTs, or by churches and other charities. And it likely doesn’t include hospital and incarceration costs. All this for about 10,000 people.

In reply to Kurt.

It is not a “relapse.” Dorsey is a healthy gay man who likes to party and to play. There is nothing wrong with that.

Dorsey’s deep sense of shame is what is driving this projection of his anxieties surrounding substances and sex onto those less powerful than he. The only thing wrong in this picture is Dorsey’s rank hypocrisy.

In reply to Paul A Aguilar.

Thank you Paul. Written in 2008, but still a snap shot of the perspectives at the time. Really points to the goals of this policy is completely political, shore up Breed’s right flank.

In reply to B..

The only reason this is news is that the mayor knows the supervisors will never pass this and so she can claim that the reason the city is in the shape it’s in is because they won’t allow her to run the city the way she wants and it’s not her fault that homelessness and drug use are out of control.
It would be great to try some of the ways they’re helping people treat addiction in Portugal but it takes a more holistic treatment than this individualistic capitalist society will allow even in San Francisco.

In reply to mathew.

The idea that the city shouldn’t hand out money indiscriminately could only be a condemnation is silly. Even if the amount misused is ‘only’ 10-20%, that’s enough folks to cause plenty of problems. Today’s Chron coverage makes it apparent enough that these resources are a draw.

The most important part you saved until the end: The insinuation that people on welfare are criminals and drug addicts is sick in itself.

In reply to CSL3.

Haha what a perfect nickname.

Portugal does this as one among the many ways they get people into treatment, except they actually don’t involve a court and only involve a medical panel, with actual treatment infrastructure without wait.

They also don’t involve hitting the wrong people who actually use the money properly at 80%, and yet, it’s mostly scorched earth.

We don’t have any of the above, and even worse, don’t have the staff to manage the drug processing of 5,200 people in a labor and budget shortage, because obviously things take people to do and all City departments are basically understaffed.

Not even the treatment behind it, which means it’s just empty ass rhetoric.

And we’re going to let 80% of them fall into the same pit, and see that right in the street.

Just, harm, harm, harm I guess.

Presuming that the % of folks receiving assistance and using it for unintended purposes is 0-20% (unintended not being defined here) – is the argument from opponents that any change not springing from the user is bound to fail? i.e. either the grip of drugs is so strong that this just hurts them or it will backfire? why would the city continue to provide money without any incentive to change to someone who’s either facing a grim future, enabled by said funds, or would not cooperate anyway?

In reply to marcos.

Hell relapse again. We’ll all have the last laugh.

I’ve always called her “London Greed” and this is just one further reason why. This is inhumane.

In reply to Alexander Der Grobe.

Everyone who’s ever dealt with a friend or family member who became an addict knows that they won’t quit until they’re ready. We also know giving them more money isn’t helping; it’s called enabling.

Mission Local fundamentally misunderstands the goal of the program.

It isn’t to help the individual junkies who have come to San Francisco to smoke fentanyl and shoplift.

It is to help the city. So if withholding cash from the junkies makes a few of them decide to go live on the street, smoke fentanyl and shoplift somewhere else, that will be a success.

But instead, we will probably give them MORE money, so they can get better drugs (like the ones their enablers do).

You know, equity and all that.

I recently listened to Breed’s speech at the 8/23 “rally” where she and her lapdog Rafael Mandelman passed the megaphone back and forth while rabid mostly white people looked on…..the same angry people who support expensive recalls, but who don’t have a plan for what comes next. Breed’s voice was shrill and ragged. Former Breed staffer and failed supervisor candidate Marjan Philhour was there too……stoking the fear and loathing. The photos from the “rally” tell you everything: Breed’s, Philhour’s, Mandelman’s, Engardio’s and Dorsey’s faces are contorted in rage. Breed blames progressives for her failures. If you criticize her decisions, you are called a racist and/or a misogynist. It is disgraceful that electeds like Governor Hairdo and London Breed use the power of their offices to incite pitchfork mobs against judges, social workers, doctors and the very people who remain in the trenches ministering to those who suffer. It’s gross. Breed is unhinged. She never was good at policy making. She is a skilled maker of speeches. Worst. Mayor. Ever.

I simply would like to refer the Mayor, Matt Dorsey, Supervisor Stafani and anyone else who supports this draconian initiative to the following website.

https://www.aclu.org/documents/drug-testing-public-assistance-recipients-condition-eligibility

I’d support this if all SF elected officials, including GHB addict Matt Dorsey, had to pass a clean drug test before getting their paycheck.

By the way, has Dorsey turned himself in for criminal prosecution after years of “relapsing” while being well paid as spokesperson for SFPD? Has Dorsey referred his dealers to the authorities for prosecution or do they continue to walk the streets and peddle death?

With this corrupt, drug addled crowd, accusations are confessions.

The city should end cash payments regardless. We should not be funding and enabling their addiction.

The purpose has nothing to do with drugs or drug use. Breed is sucking up to the billionaire boyz who will blame the board of supervisors, police commission and the battalions of zombie homeless drug addict progressives who rule/ruin the city streets. And if you want to test welfare cheats why not test coke-headed mentally-ill tech moguls to whom Breed gives tax breaks (and who knows what else). Will they leave town if they don’t get their way?? Please. Please. Garry, Elon, Zuck — all you bros — I’ll buy you each a bus ticket to Austin, Miami, you name it.

“I’ve known many people who are on welfare and I’ve known many people at City Hall,” said Jaye, “and there are many more people at City Hall who are high on drugs.”

Nearly 20 years ago, Gavin “Hair Goop” Newsom proposed cutting funding for outpatient drug treatment. Mayor for a Day Chris Daly called him out on that. Daly specifically mentioned the Stimulant Treatment Outpatient Program and reminded all who didn’t know that Newsom was a coke fiend whose addiction was so strong that he needed private outpatient services from his friend at Delancey Street. (Plus, prior to his career as an elected official, Newsom was a drug (wine) dealer.)