Drug treatment is important, yes, but making it a precondition for benefits will absolutely hurt the most vulnerable. If there was actually enough affordable housing available for everyone that needs it, there would be far less of a need for this kind of policy. It is well documented that providing housing before anything else sets people up for success. If someone has been living on the streets and suddenly has housing available, their life will improve so drastically thanks to the job and social opportunities that will become available, also making it less likely that drug abuse will continue.
This seems like a cop out to me. Just build houses for fuck’s sake.
Breed has been on the wrong side of so many issues. Most recently she made an incredibly tone-deaf statement denouncing the city council’s vote against the genocide in Gaza. I’m done with her.
https://voterguide.sfelections.org/local-ballot-measures/measure-a
This affordable housing measure also passed in the same election, for what it’s worth.
Thanks for the heads up. Yeah, I’m cautiously hopeful, but still quite skeptical they’ll get it right. These measures often sound good, but implementation is key.
Yeah I feel the same, cautiously hopeful. It seems like the implementation always gets bogged down with corruption, red tape and fingerpointing in this city…
The thing is, they don’t want drug users to have houses. Sad but true
How would (forced) addiction treatment hurt the most vulnerable?
For one thing, it’s extremely difficult to force someone out of an addiction. You usually have to want to quit in order for that to be an option. Otherwise you have to do something like torture them by making them go through a possibly extremely painful cold turkey withdrawal.
So I’d say torturing the most vulnerable would hurt them.
But what makes you think that’s what they’ll do? Would helping someone with an addiction towards treatment really ‘torture’ them?
Breed’s office has said the measure was intentionally designed to be flexible on the treatment component. Treatment options could range from out-patient services to a prescription for buprenorphine, a medication used to treat addiction. They noted it doesn’t include a requirement for participants to remain sober, recognizing that people often lapse in recovery and shouldn’t be kicked out of the program for a slip-up.
Thank you! People here getting all riled up without even reading the damn article. What else is new?
I am SO TIRED of articles about SF ending up in a national or global forum where people start complaining about stuff that SF is light years ahead on.
You asked about forced addiction treatment. Not this specific program.
There are a lot of times people are forced to have addiction treatment, especially by judges. And it is a form of torture.
Ok, fair enough. But I don’t think many treatment programs still make them go cold turkey though. Of course it’s always ‘less fun’ than just continuing shooting fentanyl, even for those who freely make the change
What? You think fentanyl addicts use it for fun? They probably didn’t even start using opioids for fun. They probably started because they were in pain.
Also, if they stop using opioids they will be in a lot more pain and they will still be living in America, where a for-profit medical system to treat that pain is beyond their reach.
It’s not about fun at all. What an incredibly insensitive thing to say.
If they don’t get help to stop, they eventually progress to a point where they are definitely not using for fun. They have no choice anymore. They have one goal and that is to be high at any cost. I work in a part of SF where there are a lot of them and the things I see them go through are horrendous. It feels like watching state sanctioned torture. They are literally being left to rot. I know two people that have lost a loved one to fentanyl and it really is heartbreaking.
beyond that forced treatment is ethically questionable, conditioning other forms of help on sobriety puts people in a bind. it’s hard for people to get and stay sober when they’re suffering, physically and mentally.
housing/food/health care (to include mental health and psychiatric care) first means it’s more likely that efforts toward sobriety will even work.
conditioning other forms of help on sobriety puts people in a bind.
This bill explicitly does not do that.
Forced addiction treatment isn’t what’s happening. They drug test the poor and then cut them off from benefits if they fail. It is a punishment.
The only way to be eligible for benefits again is to join a treatment program, many of which in the US are just religious ministries that care more about proselytizing than human outcomes. Even cults like the Church of Scientology runs drug treatment programs, with obvious motivations…
These people are exploited by pretty much everyone, including those who are tasked to help them. If your solution is to force them into anything, recovery or otherwise, you’re just exploiting them further.
From the article:
Breed’s office has said the measure was intentionally designed to be flexible on the treatment component. Treatment options could range from out-patient services to a prescription for buprenorphine, a medication used to treat addiction. They noted it doesn’t include a requirement for participants to remain sober, recognizing that people often lapse in recovery and shouldn’t be kicked out of the program for a slip-up.
You really need to read the article
“tough on crime” is just a euphemism for authoritarian
The NIMBY class will always project its insecurity more greatly than the remainder of the populace.
People vote left wing
Left wing policies make city better
Better city attracts more people
More people increases costs
Increased costs filter for rich people
Rich people vote authoritarian.
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Which is why we’re past due to be eating the rich.
You skipped the essential NIMBY step between these two:
Better city attracts more people
More people increases costs
Costs scale way out of proportion with population because of artificial constraints imposed by those lucky enough to be here first.
FUCKING CHRIST CAN SAN FRAN EVER RECOVER FROM FEINSTEIN
Please stop watching Fox News.
im an anarchist you stupid cunt read a history book
Same difference. Same IQ anyway.
christ are you a pathetic loser. get a life other than posting 24/7 you neolib cunt
I’d just like to point out to everyone watching that I’m not reporting this, because I firmly believe that this moron has the right to call me a pathetic cunt and I’m not so fragile that seeing it gives me a mental disorder.
For those of you who can’t handle being insulted by someone online, don’t participate in online discussions.
For any mods reading this, do better. Insulting someone is not a banworthy offense. Insults are a part of life and some people need to grow a damn spine.
Local tech billionares are recently dumping more money into the city politics to shift it ot the right. The CEO of Y combinator, a hugely influential silicon valley incubator is notoriously antagonist and recently drunkenly said the local city council should “die slow.”
Awwww I like hacker news why does ycombinator have to be evil
Measures supporting low income housing, more ethics laws for city officials, turning office space into residential space, and $6B for mental health care also passed in the election. Those definitely don’t seem like things that the right would support.
Hes right of San Fransisco progressive politics. Basically bog standard tech bro liberals, i.e “Yimby but not actually where I live, also don’t tax me in any real way and where are all my cops at?”
The 7 city council members he told to die were all progressives. He opposes actual progressive reforms, and is willing to spend his billions and his massive influence to fight them.
Yeah he definitely seems like a bit of a loose cannon that only has a platform due to his wealth. Not that it makes it excusable, but he did issue an apology for what thats worth. I definitely don’t think that the majority of voters agree with the remarks he made to the city council members.
However, I do think that due to the prominent quality of life crimes, homelessness and drug use in recent years, a lot of the voters in San Francisco have become disenfranchised with Progressive politics, viewing them as failed experiments.
I mean, I agree that the NIMBY bastards on the city council should be kicked out, but not to pave the way for a cop-loving bootlicker.
The SF City Council sucks donkey balls but at least they stand up to copaganda.
Policing a certain demographic more always works
Depends on who it’s working for. It works quite well for the people who want to drive up real estate prices.
This is what happens when less than 25% of the population comes out to vote.
Turnout in the last election in SF was 44.4%. Not fantastic, but much better than the rest of the state.
That’s why they pushed these referendums this election cycle, they knew it would be low turnout
That is a pretty sad turnout. The votes reflect the choices of about 92K registered democrats, vs. roughly 13K registered rebublicans though, so it’s not like this is some right wing takeover.
So if they test positive for drugs, that means you’ll set them up with support programs, right? Treat the underlying issue, correct? Not just write them off and let the problem grow even more… right???
Ah so the real estate developers are finally ready to finish their gentrification efforts. They must’ve forced out the last remaining owners in the area so now they can crack down and turn it into overpriced bullshit
The individual homeowners in California have developers over a barrel lol
Prop 13 gives all the power to home owners, as does the glut of local regulations and permits.
It’s why we have a housing crisis. Can’t build any more homes.
These Trump areas need to just fall into the ocean. It is sick what they want to do to poor people.
San Francisco, California is now a Trump area? What the fuck are you talking about?
And why does your gibberish have so many upvotes??
Seriously. Who the fuck is up voting this completely detached from reality shit? This is honestly a really bad look for Lemmy. It reminds me of “The_Donald” subreddit from back in the day. Different end of the political spectrum but behaving pretty similar.
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Can we start with addiction to Fox News?
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Just a fun remainder that Kamala made it like this on purpose and no we won’t vote for her either once biden resigns
once biden resigns
Can I borrow your crystal ball? The Powerball is up to $559 million this week.
Lol of all people, you’re pinning this on Kamala Harris? Wasn’t she a prosecutive attorney before she was DA? Wtf did she do that “made it like this”?
Jesus sed so muh preest says
You do know what the AG does, yeah?
Yes.
I stand corrected!
Hasn’t the failed war on drugs shown the narrative that drugs cause the homelessness and crime and are not just another symptom of the underlying problems is a lie?
Guess not to the general public.
Whether they are a cause or symptom, people shooting up in the streets and leaving needles everywhere is unacceptable.
They wouldn’t have to shoot up in the streets if SF still had the safe injection sites up. People who shoot up in the streets do so mostly because they want to get found if they OD.
Making it illegal to be high won’t make addicts want to stop getting high, it will just push them into dark corners where they die when they OD. Imo that’s way more unacceptable.
Not disagreeing, just curious. How can they safely inject the kind of fentanyl that’s out there now? When milligrams can kill you? What if they prefer to smoke it? Do the safe injection sites provide the drugs or do the users just bring their own stuff there and do it under supervision?
First, no they don’t give out free drugs. Even tho having clean drugs would help a lot in reducing the harms of addiction, I don’t know any government that would pass that.
Obviously fentanyl is fucking dangerous and toxic, no matter how you take it. Overdoses at those sites happen. That’s why they are equipped with Narcan, and also have a line to medical services. So users that would OD somewhere in private and not make it to the ER have a chance.
The second important part is all the stuff that goes with taking the drugs themselves. Usually addicts don’t have a ready supply of syringes and other paraphernalia to use their drugs. This leads to them sharing needles, using dirty gear and other behaviors that spread diseases like hepatitis c. By handing out clean needles and other things, a lot of those diseases can be avoided. They also hand out other medical supplies to treat the damage from the drugs and living in the streets.
Finally, they always offer addicts that want to quit support and help them find treatment. This is the most important part. Addicts trust the people at those sites, because they treat them like people, not junkies. So there is a higher chance that they feel safe enough to ask for help when it’s time for them.
I hope that answers some of your questions. If you want to learn more, Channel 5 with Andrew Callahan has a great series on drugs and homelessness on YouTube. There’s one Episode where they go to a safe injection site, but the other episodes in Philadelphia and SF are definitely also worth a watch. You will see some absolutely harrowing and terrible shit tho. If you have the stomach I highly recommend them.
Edit: Reading some of your other questions in this thread I definitely recommend you watch those Andrew Callahan documentaries. They will answer a lot of your questions and hopefully clear up some misconceptions. Start with San Francisco Streets, then watch harm reduction facility and finally Philly streets.
Thank you for actually answering this. This answered a lot of questions for me. I actually work in a nasty part of the SOMA district of SF and have seen stuff there that I will never forget. 3 ODs have happened outside of my work while I was there so far. I’ve opened the door to leave and had somebody unconscious just fall in. A 16 year old girl’s corpse was defiled after she died from an OD down the alley. People screaming covered in feces and peeling off their own skin. Some of my smaller coworkers have been harassed and chased when trying to enter the building. I’ve talked to some of the addicts there of course, and many of them have told me they don’t care if they die. Most of them are not bad people, just mentally ill and disabled. Some of them definitely get the free needles but they all use outside. There is a needle disposal box around the corner and I’ve actually seen people breaking it open to steal the needles multiple times…
It just seems like none of this stuff works and we are all bending over backwards to cater to them, and then they end up dying anyway. Many of them are severely mentally ill or damaged from the drugs and it’s pretty obvious that they are never going to be anything near functional ever again. It’s like letting a 4 year old kid in an adult body addicted to opiates just go out on to the street to fend for themselves. They are not going to make choices that are beneficial to them in the long run, they’ve literally lost that ability.
After years of putting up with this stuff, I think your average person in the city just gets to the point where they’ve had enough, and people end up voting to try something else.
Sounds absolutely horrible, and I definitely understand that residents don’t wanna live or work in these environments.
I don’t think there is an easy fix for this problem tbh. Or at least not on a local level. From what I see SF is doing a lot of social stuff right, or at least better than the rest of the country. On the other hand you have crazy inequality pushing people into desperation and addiction. This somehow needs to be solved, but it might get worse before it gets better. Idk man, it’s tough.Where I think people can make a difference is on a personal level. A little kindness goes a long way, and those people are yearning for empathy. You said they are like 4 year olds, and I think they are probably just as vulnerable. Addicts don’t have the luxury of thinking about consequences, they just survive until the next fix. So the right thing to do is be as kind and understanding as possible, even though they might make it difficult.
If you don’t have it already, might I suggest you get some Narcan for your workplace? Sounds like you could literally save a life with it someday.
You’re right, definitely couldn’t hurt to have some Narcan around. I’ve called 911 when I see people that look like they’re in danger, and the emergency services have come pretty quick each time. Many of them tend to use in tents, or place covers over themselves though. This makes it pretty difficult to tell if they’re ok. Its very common to see people completely passed out but not dead. You can usually tell if they’re actually danger by their skintone. Purple/blueish = bad.
Yeah I wish more cities in this country could devote the same amount of resources that SF devotes to these issues. Many of the addicted people I’ve talked to are actually from out of state, particularly red states. It shouldn’t be up to certain cities to take most of the burden of this national problem, but it seems like that’s what is happening. Income inequality is definitely out of control and I agree it seems to be a huge factor in pushing people into these situationss. Multi billionaires just should not exist when we have shit like this happening to to our people.
