As San Franciscol voters begin to receive their mail ballots for the March election, a group of medical professionals and treatment providers came out Thursday against Proposition F, a March ballot measure that would require cash-assistance recipients to undergo screening for illegal substance dependency and participate in treatment.
Currently, the County Adult Assistance Programs offers San Francisco adults full benefits, including employment assistance, housing, shelter, utilities and food.
No one is screened for drug use.
Under Proposition F, which requires a majority vote to be adopted, recipients of the benefits would be screened for illegal substance use. Those who fail the screening would have to participate in a treatment program — “if that program is available at no cost,” says Prop. F — to receive their benefits.
An initiative from Mayor London Breed, Prop. F has raised $406,500 as of Thursday. The two biggest donors are Ripple chairman Chris Larsen, who contributed $250,000, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who gave $75,000, according to the San Francisco Ethics Commission.
In comparison, there’s no record of opposition funding for Proposition F. Opponents include state Assemblymember Matt Haney, San Francisco public defender Mano Raju, six San Francisco supervisors, the San Francisco Democratic Party, SEIU 1021 and the United Educators of SF.
“Prop. F only layers on punishment, shame and social isolation while stripping people of resources to survive,” said Gary McCoy, vice president of policy and public affairs for HealthRight 360, at a press conference at the SF LGBT Center today.
McCoy also said there’s very little detail on how Proposition F would be implemented. For example, it’s unclear whether the proposition would affect only cash benefits, or would also include housing, employment services, food and utility assistance, which McCoy said has proven harmful under similar policies in Los Angeles and New York City.
“In fact … the city doesn’t know what that is,” he said. As to the probable cost and effectiveness of Proposition F, “the controller has no idea. The city attorney has no idea.”
“But what people are voting on, opens it up to a Pandora’s box that will be open to every single benefit,” said McCoy.
Dr. Marlene Martin, the director of the addiction team at the University of California, San Francisco, argued that Prop. F would likely exacerbate addiction and overdoses if it cuts assistance to those profiled as drug users. “It threatens access [to benefits] for the people seeking addiction treatment today, who may not come knocking [on our door] again tomorrow,” she said.
Laura Thomas, senior director at San Francisco AIDS Foundation, called Prop. F “a cynical and unserious waste of resources that will materially harm very vulnerable people, and increase homelessness in San Francisco.”
She said medical and public health research shows that reducing benefits, losing housing, incarceration, drug arrests, sweeping encampments and being released from long-term residential treatment are all factors that can increase overdose fatalities.
And Prop. F “does not, in any way, increase access to needed substance use disorder treatment,” she said.
Instead of Proposition F, what do the opposers think the city should do to recover from the drug overdose epidemic, which caused the death of 806 people in 2023?
“Incentivizing rather than punishing people,” said McCoy. “‘If you go into treatment, ‘we can do this, this and this for you,’ rather than saying, ‘if you don’t go into treatment, we’re going to take the only thing that you have to make it through.’”
“We fully agree we need to be doing something different,” said Thomas, who’s appalled by the level of distress and trauma on the streets. “And much of that is scaling up the effective stuff that we are currently doing that we’re not doing enough.”
It’s simple. We keep doing what homeless advocates say is best for homeless drug addicts. This is the wrong approach.
We need to start doing what’s best for the city. The comfort of homeless drug addicts cannot continue to be our top priority.
For the city? The city is all of the humans that are members, even the ones you do not like, judge to be lesser for whatever reasons. Everyone doing better, everyone having basic needs met makes “the city” better. Irresponsible grandstanding by people desperate to be re-elected is bad for the city. We don’t have resources to implement any such miserable mean useless policy that Breed proposes. If she does not know that , she should not be running her mouth, let alone the city. If she does know it, she’s just shown her true colors – what looks good for her career stability is whatever she needs to say. That is NO ONE to run a city. Phoney, empty & without anything to offer.
When it comes to addiction, the carrot approach does not work. You can’t incentivize someone to want to get better by simply offering them more benefits. Otherwise, they will take what they are handed and continue on the same downward spiral.
You need to take away the financial incentives. You need tough love. It’s the only way an addict will be forced to want to get help and fix their life.
Talk to any person who fought addiction and came back from it. They’ll tell you about that rock bottom moment that forced them to want to change. That is, if they are fortunate enough to have that moment.
The “rock bottom moment” that brings people to change comes from within, not from outside forces. “Tough love” doesn’t mean “my way or the highway”. It’s about being firm and compassionate while offering an invitation to take responsibility for your life through treatment. Taking away that meager financial help may be a death sentence for some or lead to criminal behavior for others.
“You need tough love. It’s the only way an addict will be forced to want to get help and fix their life. ”
And yet, addiction specialists — you know, people who actually know what they are talking about, unlike you — will tell you that you are precisely wrong.
I appreciate the fact that healthcare workers care about their clients. That’s important. If drug use in the city was not destroying us, I would not care who or how people were using them. But it’s not working that way and now we need to care about the whole city. If we think of drug addiction as a health crisis then we have to think of this city as a pandemic. We need to start doing what’s best for the whole and not just the individual.
Prop F is literally the opposite of what we’ve all been asking for.
We want to see fewer encampments. Prop F will kick people out of housing and create more encampments.
We want to see less open-air drug use. Prop F will mean more open-air drug use.
We want there to be fewer overdoses. Prop F will mean more overdoses. Just across-the-board stupid and harmful.
Not unlike the barren metal tub planters littering the city, Newsom’s old Care Not Cash, or the armies of earnest “ambassadors” who get little but give much to their political benefactors, Prop. F is a gimmick to kick political responsibility for failure down the road.
The medical professionals are right.
It is indeed bad out here, but the city will become worse if Prop. F passes.
Campers,
Being part of the drug scene since the 1950’s you should listen to me.
Main problem with it is that it was legislated as Criminal for first time 100 years ago.
Best move as Europeans have proven is just decriminalize it and take LE from the total equation which will make spontaneous drug malls like we have in UN Plaza go away cause there will be no market for the scene.
Go Niners !!
h.
This makes it so people will think “I’m just going to get a job, at least they don’t drug test me there.” Which is a good thing.
Harrison,
Some people feel they need drugs to do their jobs well.
Prison guards and some subsets of cops come to mind.
I used to judge them but I don’t now long as its maintenance HGH.
Personally, pot pot pot and under right scene I’d do DMT.
True Confessions in D-9.
lol
Go Niners !!
h.
If there were drug treatment beds open and available all the time that are just sitting empty maybe I would agree that people who need a helpful push to get into treatment might appreciate it from someone who is already assisting them with other benefits. Considering this plan only works if there is treatment ready to take them in at the same that someone is willing to go into treatment and not lose their benefits, it seems like we’re hoping to be able to pay less in cash aid because we want addicts to refuse treatment that we also don’t have the money to provide anyway.
Walden House (Healthright 360) had a terrible reputation in the abstinence side of the recovery community in the city. They are the poster child for accepting money from the state to take people from courts or prison and doping them up on unnecessary meds then releasing them into the wild zero experience living sober.
As someone who got sober during the times of the War On Drugs, I’m glad I am. Going in and out of jail was a wake up call. I’d be dead from an overdose quickly today. These harm reduction people are killing a Vietnam War every year in this country with their academic fantasy.
Cicero,
Scientists are actually saying that there is more than one person in the world and that it’s important to study more than one of them before drawing conclusions about what policies should be applied to multiple people.
Well, the overdose data from the last decade says that more people are dying than before. Like tens of thousands a year more. Way more than gun violence. Sometimes, some scientists are wrong, and there is data against harm reduction as well, it just doesn’t align with progressive politics. Find the studies on the NIH website yourself. I’ve directly helped dozens of people get sober over the years. How many have you helped?
Also, my young friends,
Same is true for what Bob Seger calls, “the Fire Down Below”.
Which is an essential part of human biology and ain’t goin’ away.
Decriminalize and Regulate as with drugs and it all goes indoors and outta headlines.
h.
I think we make it too easy for drug addicts to move here, get on the dole, and then languish on the streets for years. Maybe this will reduce these incentives we provide.
Sure, Mike. Please demonstrate that for us by moving to a new city, getting on the dole, and then languishing on the streets for years. Check in with us from time to time and let us know how it’s going.
Mike,
OK, we see your hard/strong side as they say in the Deep South.
Now, put away your noose and let’s get a drink.
Wait, I wore out my liver so I’ll have coffee and some weed.
You go ahead tho.
It’s Legal.
lol
h.
So when they break into your 100k golf cart you call a TESLA or smash your face in to grab your IPHONE23 don’t blame anyone but yourself for taking away their fucking crumbs to survive. You yuppies are the fucking problem
hey Nobody,
Just decriminalize it and you take the violence out of it.
Works in Europe.
h.
Wow — the above comment makes it through moderation? Here’s the same comment with the opposite position: So when they poop on your front stoop or burn your rent controlled apartment down with a camp fire built up against your house, don’t blame anyone but yourself for enabling their fucking bad behavior. You progressives are the fucking problem