How Cities Like San Francisco Enable Drug Addicts

The “Harm Reduction” disaster.

Dec 18, 2022

In America, when it comes to a wide variety of self-defeating behavior that leads to bad outcomes, we tend to take one of two different approaches to deal with it. Either…

1) We focus on strongly discouraging people from engaging in problematic behavior.

2) We focus on trying to help people engaged in problematic behavior and reduce the harm it causes in their lives.

Debates about issues like homelessness, single mothers, trans issues, and divorce all tend to revolve, at least in part, around these two approaches to the problem. Both approaches have different strengths and weaknesses.

The first approach is usually much cheaper and tends to dramatically reduce the scope of the problem at the price of being indifferent at best or perhaps even slightly cruel to the people suffering it at worst. Philosophically, Ben Franklin’s approach to poverty falls into this camp:

The second approach is usually very expensive and does much more to alleviate the suffering of the people afflicted with the problem, although it often does little to reduce the number of people with the problem. In fact, these sorts of policies can end up enabling the problem and leading to significantly larger numbers of people having the problem than we would have seen had NOTHING been done.

If you want to see an example of the second approach in action, read this thread by Michelle Tandler discussing the broken way that San Francisco “helps” drug addicts:

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

Extraordinary story about a man who became addicted to Fentanyl while living in San Francisco. He had 40 friends die from overdoses, and ultimately required $1M in surgery to get him walking again. The "harm reduction" strategy is not working.

sfchronicle.comHe was days from death. His quest to kick fentanyl is a harrowing lesson for S.F.For months, columnist Heather Knight followed Ben Campofreda, a San Francisco man who...

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

This is what happens when a city allows fentanyl dealers to roam free and hands out costco-sized packs of needles to addicts.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

Here was my takeaway from the Chronicle story. When addicts come to San Francisco one of two things will happen: 1) They overdose & die 2) They survive, but require tremendous care & support for years on end. Their lives are shattered and they must rebuild.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. While I'm sure the harm reduction activists believe their strategy works (and it may work in some cases for less addictive and deadly drugs) -- the results in San Francisco show otherwise.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

It is estimated that 85%+ of the homeless people in San Francisco are addicted to drugs. I do not see how someone living in a tent, surrounded by drug addicts, could get clean without support. Why does the city not offer treatment on demand??

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

We are spending hundreds of millions, if not billions, on this situation. Some people are going to the hospital for overdose treatment multiple times per week. Each hospital visit is something like $10k. The police and fire department are slammed. We cannot let this continue.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

Nobody benefits from the status quo. The city's finances are strained. Residents are scared to walk around at night. Businesses get ransacked. Addicts disintegrate in our streets. The harm reduction strategy is broken.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

I think that San Francisco should offer addicts two options: 1) Treatment 2) Shelter We need treatment on demand and a right to shelter law.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

SF's hard left activists are against both of these. They believe that mandated treatment doesn't work, and shelters simply "warehouse" people - keeping them out of view. They advocate for "housing first" and "harm reduction." I believe both of those strategies are deadly.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

The "housing first" strategy says that people deserve homes, not shelters. The SF Coalition on Homelessness has been advocating against shelters and for houses for decades. What we saw during pandemic, however, was astronomical overdoses inside city-sponsored housing.

Michelle Tandler @michelletandler

The "harm reduction" strategy says that people must come to their own decision about when to stop using drugs. They cannot be forced into treatment. They will just relapse. I disagree with this. Many people in recovery were forced into treatment.

First of all, if you’re a junkie, San Francisco is a paradise. It’s a rich city with a comfortable climate year-round. The government and liberal do-gooders will provide you with food, shelter, and needles. Drug use is essentially legal, the police are going to turn a blind eye and because there are so many junkies around, the drugs are cheap and easy to acquire.

The article Michelle Tandler mentioned early on goes into quite a bit of detail about the case of Ben Campofreda. Here are some excerpts that give you an idea of what this approach looks like in practice. Suffice it to say, it’s not pretty:

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