SF drug crisis: Good intentions "hurting people"

Thomas Fuller did a follow-up on his story I posted about the other day:

While reporting a recent article on the drug overdose crisis in San Francisco, I called Thomas Wolf, one of the loudest critics of the city’s policies, to run past him what I was hearing from professors and other experts who have spent their lives studying drug use.

“Forgive me for saying this,” Mr. Wolf politely told me, “but those people who you said you talked to — the experts — they have never shot dope, man. They never stuck a needle in their neck. They never spent a night on the street.”

Mr. Wolf has done all of those things, which makes him one of the most poignant voices in the debate over what San Francisco should do to address an epidemic that claimed 713 lives last year, more than twice as many as died from the coronavirus in the city in 2020.

Wolf seems to confirm what I was saying the other day: without radical intervention the overdose deaths will continue in San Francisco:

Mr. Wolf was arrested five times between April and June 2018 for drug possession. The sixth time, he was jailed and charged with violating a stay-away order and intent to sell drugs. In jail, he was given medication to help relieve his withdrawal symptoms. He was bailed out by his brother on the condition that he enter rehab. He is now back with his family.

That last arrest was the turning point for Wolf. Interesting to note that he got some medication that time. Was that unusual, or are addicts routinely offered withdrawal medication?

A lifelong Democrat, Mr. Wolf says he shares the goals of harm reduction in San Francisco. But he argues that some of the programs that the city funds, like handing out foil and straws to fentanyl users, cross the line into enabling drug use. The city’s nonjudgmental approach to drug use is hurting the people it is meant to help, he says. (emphasis added)

“The Tenderloin has always been the drug users’ and dealers’ epicenter in San Francisco,” Mr. Wolf said. “But in recent years, you’ve created the environment of easy access to drugs 24/7.”

The same goes for providing addicts with clean needles and a safe place to shoot up. That's well-intentioned tolerance gone awry. Instead, anyone shooting up in public should be arrested and put in jail.

There they should be put in the care of doctors who can provide medication like the stuff Wolf was given and offered comprehensive drug treatment to break the self-destructive addiction cycle.

See also Ibsen and his discontents.

See too Good intentions killing people in San Francisco and Good intentions and unintended consequences.