Drugs

How California Is Fighting Meth With Gift Cards

July 25, 2023 By Marisa Kendall 3 Comments

Among the most difficult addictions to witness at San Francisco general hospital’s drug clinic is methamphetamine, which leaves users tearing at their skin and unable to eat, sleep or sign up for help.

The worst part: The clinic workers largely are powerless because unlike with opioid addiction, for which doctors prescribe medications such as methadone, there is no medicine for stimulant use disorder.

“We live day in and day out watching people suffer in a way that’s hard to imagine,” said Dr. Brad Shapiro, medical director of the Opiate Treatment Outpatient Program at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. “They’re just dying in front of us.”

Faced with that immense suffering, California will try a new approach to stimulant addiction: Paying people with gift cards to reward them for staying sober.

This model, known as “contingency management,” rewards people with financial incentives each time their drug tests are negative for stimulants. It’s been shown to have success in clinical trials — and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been using it for more than a decade — but it hasn’t taken off in California. Medicaid previously wouldn’t cover it, so there was no funding to expand its use.

To Shapiro, that’s inexcusable.

“It’s actually, in my opinion, really quite criminal that we’ve gone decades knowing this is an effective treatment and the powers that be have failed to make a pathway for treatment for people,” he said.

The program is expanding now, thanks to a recent waiver by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that allows the agency to cover its costs. California was the first state in the nation to win approval for a contingency management program under Medicaid. The Golden State is launching pilot programs in 24 counties, including San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Costs for what collectively is called the Recovery Incentives Program will be reimbursed by CalAIM – the state’s recent expansion of Medi-Cal services.

“All of a sudden we have money to provide this incredibly effective intervention,” said Shapiro, whose clinic is launching one of three pilot programs coming to San Francisco. “So it makes a huge difference.”

Fighting meth with gift cards

Shapiro’s clinic focuses primarily on opioid addiction, but more than half of their patients also have a stimulant use disorder, he said.

While the deadly opioid fentanyl gets most of the attention in the drug epidemic in California and across the country, experts say stimulant use is a major — and growing — concern. In 2021, 65% of drug-related deaths in California involved cocaine, methamphetamine or other stimulants — up from 22% in 2011, according to the California Department of Health Care Services. Nationally, there were 15,489 overdose deaths involving stimulants other than cocaine (largely methamphetamine) in 2019, up 180% from 2015, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

And with California in the midst of a dire homelessness crisis, stimulants are wreaking havoc on the state’s unhoused community. Among unhoused residents who use drugs, amphetamines are by far the most common choice, according to a recent study by the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. Nearly one-third of people surveyed reported using amphetamines three or more times a week, compared to just 11% who used opioids with the same frequency. Some people who live on the street reported using stimulants to stay alert at night, when they fear being attacked if they fall asleep.

To combat stimulant addiction among its patients, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital recently launched a six-month contingency management program as part of the statewide pilot. The hospital opened enrollment on July 17, and staff hope ultimately to serve about 50 people. Clinicians will test participants for stimulants once or twice a week. Each time patients test negative, they’ll get a $10 gift card to Walmart or another retailer. The amount of the gift card gradually will increase, for a maximum of $26.50 per test. If they test positive, they get nothing.

Participants can earn a maximum of $599 over the course of the program. That’s because payments of $600 or more must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

Santa Clara County hopes to launch a similar program within the next few weeks. So far this year, 70% of the 120 drug deaths recorded in the county involved methamphetamine, according to the Office of the Medical Examiner-Coroner.

“We’re all excited to try it and see if it does help retain people in treatment for longer periods of time so they are more successful,” said Tammy Ramsey, program manager for the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System in the county’s behavioral health department.

Contingency management works

Other programs in counties throughout California — including Alameda, Fresno, Nevada, Sacramento and Los Angeles — will follow the same model.

If the trials are successful, Shapiro hopes the state will allow them to expand and serve everyone on Medi-Cal.

The model already has proven effective for the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to Dominick DePhilippis, the department’s deputy national mental health director for substance use disorders. The VA started using contingency management in 2011, and as of the beginning of July, the program has treated more than 6,300 veterans. Those veterans have attended about half of their appointments and produced nearly 82,000 urine samples – of which more than 92% were negative for the targeted drug, DePhilippis said.

It’s not just the VA. Of 22 studies testing contingency management’s impact on stimulant addiction, 82% reported “significant increases” in participants’ abstinence, according to a 2021 meta-analysis published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Shapiro believes the model works because it replaces the reward a patient’s brain craves (the drug) with a different type of prize.

“It’s a little bit like winning something,” Shapiro said. “It triggers that reward place in the brain that otherwise they would be turning to the drug for.”

But Tom Wolf, who has battled addiction and homelessness himself and now advocates for drug policy reform, said he worries using Medi-Cal to fund contingency management will create bureaucratic hurdles to treatment as patients wait for the state to decide if they are eligible. Still, he said, the program is worth a shot.

“At this point I’m willing to try it, basically because we have such a dearth of options for people that are struggling with addictions in California,” he said.

Because of how difficult it is to treat his patients that use stimulants — many of them use methamphetamine every day — Shapiro would be happy if even a quarter of participants significantly reduced or stopped using. There is also concern, as with any type of treatment, that patients will relapse once the program is over, he said. To help prevent that, the hospital will provide six additional months of counseling after the contingency management program ends.

It’s not a perfect solution

Rewarding people for staying sober doesn’t work for everyone. Even before it was covered by Medi-Cal, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital was experimenting with the model in small programs.

One of the participants in those programs, 54-year-old J.W., ended up in the emergency room with heart failure after two decades of methamphetamine use. After his hospital stay, he enrolled in a 12-week program called Heart Plus, which caters to cardiac patients with a history of stimulant use. Every time J.W. did something positive, such as show up to an appointment, take his medication or get a negative drug test, he got to draw a Safeway gift card out of a hat. The cards’ value ranged from $5 to the “elusive” $20, and J.W. — who asked to go by his initials out of fear of being stigmatized for his drug use — estimates he earned about $180 throughout the entire program. He wasn’t working at the time, so the cards helped him get treats such as deli sandwiches and fancy bottles of kombucha.

“It was definitely something to look forward to,” he said. “And it was something fun to spend.”

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, Drugs, Gavin Newsom, Legislature, meth

Psychedelic Drug Decriminalization Bill Passes Senate Public Safety Committee

March 25, 2023 By Evan Symon 2 Comments

Another new Assembly Bill with narrower focus quickly gains support

A bill to decriminalize plant-based psychedelic drugs was passed by the Senate Public Safety Committee this week completing the bill’s first major hurdle, while a new major challenge to the bill has quickly gained support in the Assembly.

First introduced in December of last year, Senate Bill 58 by Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco) would decriminalize plant-based and other natural hallucinogens such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms), dimethyltryptamine (psychedelic drug DMT), ibogaine (psychedelic substance), and mescaline (psychedelic hallucinogen). In addition, law enforcement would be unable to charge those holding the drugs with a criminal penalty while also still being completely illegal for minors.

SB 58 would also remove bans on having psilocybin or psilocyn spores that can produce mushrooms and on having drug paraphernalia associated with all decriminalized drugs.

The bill is a significantly pared down version of SB 519, first introduced in January 2021 by Weiner that would have not only legalized the psychedelics in SB 58, but also would have included synthetic hallucinogens such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), ketamine (“dissociative anesthetic”), and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy, molly). However, the bill was amended heavily in 2021 and 2022, removing ketamine and other troubling parts for legislators and oppositions groups, such as law enforcement agencies. Despite the changes, the bill was still gutted in August, removing everything but a single study on the use of the remaining drugs. SB 58 continued to water down the bill, removing peyote from the proposed decriminalization list and removing a provision to study future reforms.

The effort to make the decriminalization more palatable for lawmakers appeared to be working on Tuesday, with the Senate Public Safety Committee voting 3-1 to pass the bill.

Before the vote on Tuesday, Senator Wiener noted that “These are not addictive drugs. And these are drugs that have significant potential in helping people to navigate and to become healthy who are experiencing mental health, challenges substance use challenges.”

“We know that cities in California and elsewhere have passed resolutions to categorize enforcement of these particular criminal laws as the lowest law enforcement priority. This is an important step for California. This is about making sure that people have access to substances that they need that are not addictive.”

Rival bill in Assembly expected to challenge SB 58

However, while SB 58 did ultimately move this week, another bill on the horizon in the Assembly is now threatening to derail it. Assembly Bill 941, authored by Assemblywoman Marie Waldron (R-Valley Center), was introduced last month. According to AB 941, certain psychedelic drugs would be green-lighted for use, but only in psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions for combat veterans.

The bill, also known as the End Veteran Suicide Act, takes a more cautious approach and would authorize a licensed professional clinical counselor to administer controlled substances to combat veterans. Psychedelic-assisted therapy would be required to take place over a minimum of 30 sessions, with therapy sessions to be a minimum of 12 hours in duration. The bill would also require 2 or 3 licensed professional clinical counselors present per patient at a psychedelic-assisted therapy session.

While the bill is currently awaiting to be heard in the Assembly, many law enforcement and medical professionals noted that AB 941 is preferable to SB 58 due to more of a controlled and monitored use, as well as the serving as more of a test to see if psychedelic treatments could then be expanded to more Californians in a safe and effective manner.

“Wiener’s bill is more one size fits all,” explained former police officer and current drug counselor Marty Ribera to the Globe on Thursday. “This other bill is a bit more tailored. Psychedelic treatment isn’t for everyone. And rather than just decriminalize willy-nilly, AB 941 can help bring along a pathway to use them for good, and more critically, to identify the people who can benefit from their treatment and making sure that using them would not bring on any negative side effects like depression, long-term psychosis, or in more of a social context, bad trips.”

“We need this to be on a case by case basis and to have a small pool to test on to make sure his type of therapy can work like this. Psychedelics can help treat major issues like PTSD. We have the research. But we also see psychedelics ruin peoples lives. I’ve always said, for every success story there are two others that tried it on their own and ruined their life. We need to be open to this as a treatment, but also very cautious about it.”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Drugs, Legislature

L.A. Riders Bail on Metro Trains Amid ‘Horror’ of Deadly Drug Overdoses, Crime

March 16, 2023 By Rachel Uranga 1 Comment

Matthew Morales boarded the Metro Red Line at MacArthur Park as classical music blared over the station loudspeakers.

It was rush hour on a Tuesday afternoon, and Morales made his way to a back corner seat and unfolded a tiny piece of foil with several blue shards of fentanyl. As the train started west, he heated the aluminum with a lighter and sucked in the smoke through a pipe fashioned from a ballpoint pen.

Doors opened and closed. A few passengers filed in and out. A grain of the opioid fell to the floor. He concentrated on trying to pick it up, then lost track, as his body went limp. His shoulders slumped and he slowly keeled forward.

By the time the train arrived at the Wilshire/Western station, Morales, 29, was doubled over and near motionless, his hand on the floor. The train operator walked out of the cabin, barely glancing at him as she passed — as if she encountered such scenes all the time.

Drug use is rampant in the Metro system. Since January, 22 people have died on Metro buses and trains, mostly from suspected overdoses — more people than all of 2022. Serious crimes — such as robbery, rape and aggravated assault — soared 24% last year compared with the previous.

“Horror.” That’s how one train operator recently described the scenes he sees daily. He declined to use his name because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Earlier that day, as he drove the Red Line subway, he saw a man masturbating in his seat and several people whom he refers to as “sleepers,” people who get high and nod off on the train.

“We don’t even see any businesspeople anymore. We don’t see anybody going to Universal. It’s just people who have no other choice [than] to ride the system, homeless people and drug users.”

Commuters have abandoned large swaths of the Metro train system. Even before the pandemic, ridership in the region was never as high as other big-city rail systems. For January, ridership on the Gold Line was 30% of the pre-pandemic levels, and the Red Line was 56% of them. The new $2.1-billion Crenshaw Line that officials tout as a bright spot with little crime had fewer than 2,100 average weekday boardings that month.

Few stations compare with MacArthur Park/Westlake. The station sits next to an open-air drug market that’s existed in this dense immigrant neighborhood for decades. About 22,000 people board the trains here daily.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported that between November and January there were 26 medical emergencies at the station, the majority of them suspected drug overdoses. Last year, there were six deaths and one shooting, nearly all related to suspected drug activity. Earlier this year, a 28-year-old man was fatally stabbed in a breezeway of the station.

Maintenance crews are often called out for repairs at the station, and when they return to their vehiclethey often find it has been burglarized. Gangs control the area and police say many of the informal vendors on the sidewalks are part of the larger drug economy, wittingly or not. Some are forced to pay the gang taxes, others sell stolen property.

The transit agency’s head of security has said she will be asking the 13-member board — that includes Mayor Karen Bass and the county supervisors — to expand the agency’s force of nearly 200 in-house transit officers, some of whom are armed and enforce fare evasion and code of conduct violations. And the board will soon decide whether to continue contracts with the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Long Beach Police Department, or come up with another way to secure the system.

Some board members and social justice advocates have argued for less policing on the system, saying that racial profiling targets many passengers.

“What will harassment and jailing people who use drugs do to address drug use rates?” said Alison Vu, a spokesperson for the Alliance for Community Transit-LA, a social justice advocacy coalition that wants the agency to eliminate contracts with law enforcement. “We’ve poured so much money into policing, without any measurable impact on care or safety for transit riders.”

In response to such concerns, transit officials committed $122 million over the last year trying to make the system — composed of 105 rail stations and more than 12,000 bus stops — feel safer by placing 300 unarmed “ambassadors” to report crimes and help passengers. It’s part of what officials like to tout as a “multilayered” approach to improving a system that’s become emptier and more dangerous over recent years — even as billions have been sunk into expansion of the rail lines.

“I do think there’s something about the culture of the riding public, that if they know there’s someone who is empowered to report [illegal activity] that may be a deterrent to the activity itself,” said Metro Chief Executive Stephanie Wiggins.

Wiggins touted the rollout of the ambassador program to the news media on March 6. Followed by a phalanx of ambassadors, she boarded a Gold Line train from downtown Union Station to Heritage Square in Montecito Heights to show how what she and others call the “eyes and ears” of the system will work.

As Wiggins talked to reporters, a man in the next car was packing marijuana into a cigar wrapper. The ambassadors didn’t discourage the man as he threw tobacco on the floor to make room for the weed.

Melissa Saenz, one of several newly minted ambassadors on the train, leaned over to tell a reporter that in instances such as this she would “report it” to law enforcement. “We are here to make a change.”

But even law enforcement said they can only do so much.

During the final three months of last year, LAPD arrested 49 people on the Red Line for drug-related offenses. As of mid-February, only one of those arrests resulted in a criminal filing, said LAPD Deputy Chief Donald Graham, who oversees the department’s Transit Bureau.

Many drug possession charges in California are misdemeanors or are considered lower-level offenses. And as such, the cases are often a low priority. Evidence often sits in a crime lab for months.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported deaths linked to fentanyl rose from 109 in 2016 to 1,504 in 2021, amounting to a 1,280% increase. First responders now often carry Narcan, an opiate reversal, and they need it on the Metro.

The deaths from fentanyl and fentanyl-laced methamphetamine occur across the system. There were nine confirmed overdoses at rail stations last year, all men. But those figures will probably rise as the coroner’s office closes more cases.

There was Oscar Velasquez, 23, who died at the downtown Santa Monica station; Trivonne Vonner, 35, found at the Firestone station in an unincorporated area of South Los Angeles; and Ervin Siles Gutierrez was pronounced dead at the Vermont and Santa Monica station in East Hollywood.

“There’s so many ‘sleepers,’ ” the train driver said. “Nobody notices that the guy quit breathing until they’re blue. And then by that time, it’s too late.”

Fentanyl is a syntheticopioid drug that is 50 times more potent than heroin and cheap. A single dose can be bought for about $5. But it’s extremely addictive, in part because of the withdrawal it provokes — jitters, diarrhea, extreme anxiousness andnausea.

“It’s like the worst flu you’ve ever had in your entire life. And it just gets worse over time,” said Susan Partovi, a doctor who treats users on skid row. “That has become most of the people’s main motivation — to continue opiate use is to avoid withdrawal symptoms.”

She said overdose prevention sites, where people who are addicted could ingest drugs safely and without shame, could prevent such public nuisances as people doing drugs in elevators or on trains.

Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation last year to begin a pilot program of these consumption sites in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland. In his veto message, he said he was open to discussion on limited sites, but he said without a strong plan the legislation could have induced a “world of unintended consequences.”

The “sleepers” were at Union Station one recent weekday afternoon as a petite woman, who spoke little English, looked for the train to the Expo Line.

She walked into a train car that was empty but for three passed-out passengers. She looked at them and walked back out. Unsure what to do next, she stood looking confused on the platform. An ambassador came up to ask if she needed help.

“Expo,” she said.

She was on the right train, he said. But she shook her head, she didn’t want to return to the cars. So he walked her into another car and stayed with her. The doors closed.

People waited for hours to board the train when it opened in 1993.The MacArthur Park/Westlake station was the original Western terminus of Los Angeles’ first subway, with a plaza that looks out to the park.

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, used needles and human feces littered the station’s parking lot. Just around the corner near Alvarado Street, a man smoked from a glass pipe as a steady stream of people walked by.

Drug users and homeless people hang around the edges of the plaza and have breached locked areas in the station, creating a danger for riders and staff.

“It’s the most challenging [station] relative to drug use,” said Conan Cheung, Metro head of operations. “People are loitering there on the plaza and it is spilling into the ancillary areas, which makes it even more of an emergency.”

The smaller entrance is now closed off by fencing, as are large swaths inside the battered station.Transit officials recently beefed up security and the presence of ambassadors there. But they have also been trying to design away the problem by reducing the open floor space, pressure washing floors and piping in classical music to keep people from loitering. Metro is looking atreplacing the wide benches on the platform,regulating vendors and blocking off parts of the plaza.

Metro board member and Supervisor Hilda Solis asked the agency to consider another approach, and come up with a plan that will make the station and plaza more inviting to the community at large. She’s asked the agency to look at “care-centered strategies” including a vending program, health and crisis support services, cultural programming, public art, bathrooms and shade structures.

LAPD foot patrols were inside and outside the MacArthur Park/Westlake station when a Times reporter and photographer visited on a recent Tuesday.

“Most people come here to buy drugs and then they do them on the train,” said Jerry Settlemire, who emerged from the platform with his wife, Michelle.

But the changes barely registered with the couple.The two said they had recently been released from the county jail and came to cop “fetty,” as fentanyl is known on the streets.

After talking for a few moments, a jittery Michelle Settlemire began looking around.

“I’m ready to get high,” she said.

They walked away from the station to buy drugs.

Before Morales boarded the train to smoke his drugs, he was outside the station plaza in a brisk breeze as people whizzed by. Women held their children’s hands. Others talked on phones. Then there were those with drawn faces who looked as though they hadn’t slept in days. Many were thin and some, like Morales, had bloody marks on their faces or limbs. He didn’t sleep the day before but seemed happy to talk.

Click here to read the full article at LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Crime, Drugs, Los Angeles

Senator Weiner Reintroduces Psychedelic Drug Decriminalization bill

December 21, 2022 By Evan Symon 7 Comments

SB 58 waters down previous versions of the bill by only keeping in plant-based psychedelic drugs

A bill to decriminalize plant-based psychedelic drugs was reintroduced on Monday in a much-watered down version that previous iterations have taken.

According to Senate Bill 58, by Senator Scott Weiner (D-San Francisco), plant-based and other natural hallucinogens such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms), dimethyltryptamine (psychedelic drug DMT), ibogaine (psychedelic substance), and mescaline (psychedelic hallucinogen) would be decriminalized, with police being unable to charge those holding the drugs with a criminal penalty and the drug still being across the board illegal for minors.

However, as promised, Weiner brought the bill back on Monday, stripping it of the more controversial synthetic drugs. Wiener also kept in tact the reasons behind the bill – to end the mass incarceration that occurred during the war on drugs, as well as to increase scientific and medical testing to help those suffering from mental health conditions such as PTSD and depression.

Weiner brings back psychedelic decriminalization bill

“Research from top medical universities shows that these substances can have significant benefits, particularly for treating mental health and substance use disorders, and decriminalizing their personal use is part of the larger movement to end the racist War on Drugs and its failed and destructive policies,” Wiener said in a press release on Monday. “In the past few years, the mental health and addiction crises have worsened. Since the onset of the pandemic, so many people have dealt with unemployment and financial distress, a lack of community and social isolation, and loss of friends or family — anxiety, depression, overdose and suicide rates are up across the country. With many people seeking treatment for these conditions, it’s critical that we look to alternatives to criminalizing and incarcerating people who are using psychedelics to heal.”

“For veterans, many of whom live with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), access to psychedelics can be lifesaving. Veterans die by suicide at a rate of 1.5 times the general public. That’s why Veterans Affairs is studying psychedelic therapy, and why so many veterans are advocating for the decriminalization of psychedelics. Psychedelics have tremendous capacity to help people heal, but right now, using them is a criminal offense. These drugs literally save lives and are some of the most promising treatments we have for PTSD, anxiety, depression, and addiction.”

Despite Senator Wiener’s advocacy for the decriminalization of the plant-based hallucinogens, as several Californian cities have done, as well as Oregon and Colorado recently passing similar measures, there is still a large segment of opposition against SB 58. While law enforcement groups in large part, others, including medal professionals, also oppose the bill given the significant dangers involved.

“Wiener is trying to make it sound like nothing can go wrong with taking these drugs,” explained former police officer and current drug counselor Marty Ribera to the Globe on Monday. “But he is so wrong. What about the bad trips? What about depression caused by these drugs? What about long-term psychosis? For every success story there are at least 2 others that involve a ruined life. These drugs are illegal, and criminalized, for so many reasons.”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: California Politics, Drugs, Legislature

Parent Says 10-Month-Old Barely Survived Ingesting Fentanyl at Popular SF Park

December 2, 2022 By Luz Pena 2 Comments

“It’s horrible. It makes me just reconsider staying in San Francisco and if we should move,” said parent Alexis St. George.

The San Francisco Police Department is investigating a medical emergency that sent a 10-month-old to the emergency room. The child’s parent says the baby ingested fentanyl.

San Francisco firefighters and paramedics were sent to a popular park in the Marina District.

San Francisco resident Michael Halpern witnessed the medical response.

“My office is right there. We saw paramedics and people and the stretchers going on. Then the mommies over there with the babies and the nannies and people in distress,” said Halpern.

The parent of the child posted on social media that their 10-month-old barely survived after ingesting fentanyl while playing at Moscone Park. On Wednesday, parents were on edge.

“It worries me that he is going to pick up something like that. Get it on his hands and then put it in his mouth. At this age you shouldn’t worry about your kid consuming something like fentanyl,” said parent Kirsten Chalfant.

In a new post, the parent said the nanny reacted quickly. After noticing the baby’s mouth turned blue and he began to have trouble breathing. According to the parent the baby was given Narcan an opioid overdose reversal drug.

The San Francisco Police Department confirmed they are investigating the cause of the medical emergency. The fire department said they couldn’t confirm the claim of the baby ingesting fentanyl at the park and added:

“We responded to Moscone Park for a pediatric patient in cardiac arrest. San Francisco Fire and Paramedics arrived on scene in 2 minutes, provided life-saving measures and revived the patient.”

San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani represents the Marina District.

“I’m a mother myself and I would say just to be very cautious and to look around and to know that we are doing everything in District 2. We are responding with police presence and have rec and parks respond in the way they can,” said Supervisor Stefani.

Luz Pena: “What is your office going to do? What are you doing about this?”

Supervisor Stefani: “What I have been doing is making sure that we are not just engaging in harm reduction but that people have paths to recovery. The whole purpose of harm reduction is to make sure that the addict doesn’t get sick from a dirty needle. But if our focus on harm reduction is actually potentially harming others we need to reevaluate that.”

Supervisor Stefani said the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department will close the park after hours, and police patrol will increase but for some parents, this incident may be their tipping point.

“It’s horrible. It makes me just reconsider staying in San Francisco and if we should move,” said parent Alexis St. George.

SFPD Statement:

“On 11/29/22 at approximately 10:16 p.m., San Francisco Police officers from Northern Station responded to a local hospital for a report of male infant that had undergone a medical emergency. Officers met with the witness who was with the child at Moscone Recreational Park at approximately 2:30 p.m., when the medical emergency occurred. The San Francisco Fire Department responded to the scene and transported the child to the hospital for a life-threatening emergency. The cause of the medical emergency is still under investigation.

Click here to read the full article at ABC 7 News

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Drugs, fentanyl

Newsom, Out Front on Marriage and Marijuana, Faces ‘Different Animal’ On Drug Sites

August 16, 2022 By Joe Garofoli Leave a Comment

Gavin Newsom is facing one of the toughest political decisions of his career: whether to grant state permission for San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles to open experimental safe injection sites as a way to curb California’s overdose crisis.

Most elected leaders couldn’t veto something like this fast enough. Condoning illegal drug use — even if it is supervised by professionals — sounds politically insane.

But since his first days in elective office, Newsom has been at his best when he’s looking around the corner and leading on a controversial issue, long before it’s well understood, much less politically popular. Think about his leadership on same-sex marriage, the legalization of cannabis, rolling back the death penalty, toughest-in-the-nation gun safety laws and making California an abortion rights sanctuary.

Newsom was out front early and loudly on those issues — even when the rest of America thought he was nuts and the moves jeopardized his career.

“SF Mayor Gavin Newsom Risks Career on Gay Marriage” blared a Newsweek headline in January 2009, two months after California voters backed Proposition 8, which banned the same-sex marriages that Newsom had approved weeks after beginning his stint as San Francisco’s mayor in 2004. After the loss, Newsweek wrote that “Newsom has become a joke to Democratic insiders, a man whose bright national future ended before it began.”

So much for predictions. Score one for being ahead of the curve.

But this decision is different, which may be why insiders say Newsom is hesitating about whether to approve the pilot program to allow people to inject or smoke drugs in the presence of harm-reduction specialists in controlled settings. As my colleague Heather Knight has written about extensively, it is a way to address the overdose epidemic that is out of control. Since 2020, 1,649 people have died of overdoses in San Francisco, nearly twice as many as those who have died due to COVID-19.

This is not an untried idea. Similar sites have been operating in Canada and Europe. New York has been running two since last year. The city’s new mayor — former police officer Eric Adams, hardly a progressive — likes them so much that he’s considering keeping them open all night.

It seems like the exact type of cutting-edge idea that Newsom would leap to support, said Kim Nalder, a professor of political science at Sacramento State University.

“With so many issues, he’s shown that he’s willing to blaze a trail, so it’s already his brand,” Nalder said. “Californians already expect him to do things that are out of the mainstream that might be ahead of the rest of the country. So I don’t think it hurts him to do more bold actions because that’s part of his logo already.”

There’s one problem. In raw political terms, it’s a loser.

Unlike Newsom’s move to legalize same-sex marriage or put his weight behind cannabis and abortion rights, there’s no constituency for needle drug users. After Newsom permitted San Francisco to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, there was a long, joyous line of loving couples snaking around City Hall, eternally grateful to Newsom for enabling them to do something they thought would never happen in their lifetime — get married.

Politically, he was prescient. Then, about 42% of Americans supported gay marriage, according to Gallup. Now, 71% of the country — including a majority of Republicans — support same-sex nuptials.

Newsom was also ahead of the curve when he led the drive to legalize cannabis in California in 2016 while he was lieutenant governor, becoming one of the highest-ranking officials in the country to back legalization. Longtime former GOP operative Tim Miller praised Newsom for his weed work and said he could take it even further.

“Running a national ‘Legalize It’ (cannabis) campaign would be really popular,” said Miller, who was a bare-knuckled political operative when he worked on presidential campaigns for John McCain and Jon Huntsman.

“But needle drugs?” Miller said and shook his head. “This is just a different, different animal.”

Click here to read the full article at the SF Chronicle

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Drugs, Gavin Newsom

San Francisco Is Allowing People to Use Drugs Inside New Tenderloin Treatment Linkage Center

January 28, 2022 By Mallory Moench , Kevin Fagan 1 Comment

San Francisco is allowing people to use drugs in an outdoor area of Mayor London Breed’s new Tenderloin Linkage Center in United Nations Plaza, interviews and Chronicle observations confirm.

Several people told The Chronicle in interviews Tuesday that they had used drugs inside the fenced-in area bordering the center’s entrance on U.N. Plaza. In addition to the outdoor area, the city offers basic hygiene services, food, clothing and connections to services such as treatment and housing on the first floor of the seven-story building.

The mayor’s spokesperson, Jeff Cretan, said in an email that the “emergency initiative is about doing everything we can to help people struggling with addiction, and getting them connected to services and treatment. As part of that, the linkage center is serving as a low-barrier site to bring people off the street.”

The revelation that people are using drugs at the week-old site was first reported on the Substack newsletter of Michael Shellenberger, an author who has criticized progressive policies in San Francisco he sees as too permissive.

Addiction experts and advocates differ on whether allowing those who struggle with substance use disorder to get high at the site will help them get connected to treatment, with some saying it acknowledges a necessary reality on a journey to get help and others calling it counterproductive.

Shellenberger accused the city of running an “illicit drug consumption site” and a “supervised drug consumption area,” which is currently illegal under state and federal law.

Francis Zamora, a spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Management, which is running the linkage center, denied the city was operating a supervised consumption site. San Francisco is working to follow New York City in opening such a site, which would provide medical supervision and clean supplies, despite its questionable legal status.

Even if city officials are turning a blind eye to illegal drug use, they’re unlikely to face legal liability, said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the school’s Criminal Justice Center.

“Prosecutors have almost unreviewable discretion not to bring a charge,” Weisberg said. “I don’t think anybody would have standing to complain,” he said, because it would be hard for an individual to show he or she was injured by San Francisco’s actions or inactions.

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Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Crime, Drugs, san francisco

OC, Riverside County Announce Crackdown on Fentanyl Dealers. But Not LA County

November 13, 2021 By Teri Sforza 2 Comments

Dealers who sell fentanyl-laced drugs that result in death can face murder charges under tough new policies announced by Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin on Monday, Nov. 9.

“We have seen a 1,000% increase over the last five years as a result of overdoses and deaths by fentanyl,” Spitzer said. “Rich, poor, Black, White, Brown, men, women, children, hardcore drug users and first-time drug users who are exposed have died.”

Spitzer will add an admonishment to plea deals, in which dealers acknowledge that fentanyl is in street drugs and can be deadly.

If that dealer is involved in another fentanyl sale that results in death, second-degree murder charges can be filed. In Riverside County, Hestrin is prosecuting seven second-degree murder cases against alleged pill pushers on the theory of implied malice, and has several more in the pipeline.

Click here to read the full article at the OC Register

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Drugs, fentanyl, Todd Spitzer

San Francisco Embraced a New Religion: Drug Normalization

February 23, 2019 By Erica Sandberg 3 Comments

Drugs are destroying San Francisco’s most densely populated and desirable neighborhoods, as more and more addicts, many of them homeless, fill the streets. Politicians and activists are pushing “harm reduction,” which, in a clinical sense, means a “set of practical strategies and ideas aimed at reducing negative consequences associated with drug use,” such as overdose or the transmission of disease. But in a contemporary context, it also means “a movement for social justice built on a belief in, and respect for, the rights of people who use drugs.”

Harm reduction, originally a controversial public-health measure, has become a religion among advocates, even as fears that the practice would normalize drug use have been borne out. Organizations like the San Francisco Drug Users Union demand “a safe environment where people can use & enjoy drugs” and a “positive image of drug users to engender respect within our community and from outside our community.” True believers dominate City Hall as well as a network of affiliated, politicized nonprofits that operate in the city with little oversight or accountability. In this environment, questioning harm reduction or its effects borders on heresy. But are the programs actually helping impoverished addicts? And what is the impact on the community?

The Department of Public Health distributes 4.45 million needles each year to the city’s 22,000 intravenous drug users. Heroin and prescription opioids are the most injected substances, though use of methamphetamines and Fentanyl is on the rise. It’s true that sterile needles reduce the transmission of blood-borne infections, and injecting narcotics under supervision can lower the risk of overdose and death. But harm reduction goes far beyond promoting these kinds of needle-safety measures. For example, At the Crossroads, a nonprofit, assembled “safe snorting kits” for at-risk and homeless youth. Baggies were filled with straws, chopping mats, plastic razor blades, and instruction sheets. Other groups offer crack-cocaine “safe-smoking” kits. A proposal to open “safe injection” sites, opposed by Jerry Brown, is favored by Governor Gavin Newsom, and is likely to succeed.

Harm-reduction efforts are sometimes sold as ways to connect with addicts, offer them other services, and help them get off drugs. But those laudable goals are not really what motivate advocates, who want mostly to remove the stigma surrounding drug use. Addicts may eventually pursue treatment or stop using on their own, but a central principle of harm-reduction theory is accepting and respecting drug use. As a result, an astonishing number of addicts on San Francisco streets hover on the edge of death, despite a continuous supply of clean needles.

Visit city neighborhoods ranging from the iconic Union Square and the Financial District to historically troubled areas such as the Tenderloin, Civic Center, and South of Market, and the unintended consequences of harm reduction become hard to ignore. The advocates have certainly succeeded in reducing stigma—it’s easy to find people openly injecting into their arms, legs, toes, and necks. Their exposed flesh shows infected sores; they stumble, fall, and pass out. There seem to be more of them, and in worse condition, every day. Addicts congregate on sidewalks, in parks, subway stations, and outside businesses. They die in school doorways.

As for the needles, addicts are encouraged to take as many as they want. The city program does not involve needle exchange, so it offers no incentive properly to dispose of used needles. San Francisco’s streets and transportation system are littered with discarded syringes. After massive public outcry (and streams of embarrassing media reports) about the proliferation of hazardous medical waste on the streets and sidewalks, the city contracted with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, at approximately $1 million per year, to hire a cleanup crew. Roughly 60 percent of the needles now get collected.

Meantime, quality of life in the city continues to erode. Tourism is threatened, retailers close, and families leave. Yet harm-reduction zealots remain adamant in their views. During public discussions about safe-injection sites, they dismiss legitimate concerns about increased drug-dealing, burglaries, violence, and vagrancy. In community meetings, Department of Public Health representatives disregard residents’ misgivings. Typical complaints—“Why are you doing this? Bloody needles are everywhere, people are injecting in front of my kid’s preschool, I’m afraid to take my dog for a walk”—are met with responses that usually begin, “This is harm reduction.” In San Francisco’s brave new world, there is no room for the skeptic.

Erica Sandberg is a widely published consumer-finance reporter based in San Francisco and the author of Expecting Money: The Essential Financial Plan for New and Growing Families. As a community advocate, she focuses on homelessness and crime and safety issues.

This article was originally published by City Journal Online

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Drugs, Gavin Newsom, san francisco