San Francisco ends policy of providing drug paraphernalia without treatment
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie on Wednesday announced that the city would no longer give users free paraphernalia to consume drugs without providing treatment counseling.
The move marks a shift away from the standing policy of providing supplies for people to use drugs in a safer manner, including clean foil and needles. San Francisco has long been criticized for its lax views on public drug use.
"We can no longer accept the reality of two people dying a day from overdose. The status quo has failed to ensure the health and safety of our entire community, as well as those in the throes of addiction. Fentanyl has changed the game, and we've been relying on strategies that preceded this new drug epidemic, which ends today," Lurie said in a press release.
Under new guidelines issued by the city's Department of Public Health and DPH Director Dan Tsai, individuals must now receive treatment counseling or be connected to services to receive safer drug use supplies.
"Distribution of foil, pipes and straws for safer-use supplies, we will no longer allow that in public spaces, meaning not in the street, not in parks, not on the sidewalks," said Tsai. "There is a place for that in a more indoor, treatment-controlled setting, where someone can have a high-quality discussion to try to get someone plugged into treatment."
The policy change is part of Mayor Lurie's "Breaking the Cycle" plan to address homelessness, opioid addiction and mental health treatment. The fentanyl crisis will now be approached with a focus more on drug treatment versus harm reduction.
Handing out clean pipes and other drug paraphernalia is meant to prevent accidental overdose or infection from the sharing of contaminated materials. But the mayor is ordering nonprofits that take city funding to stop the practice. And he has an ally in City Hall with experience in drug addiction, Supervisor Matt Dorsey.
Dorsey is a recovering addict himself, and he believes that the harm reduction effort is being driven by activists with a political agenda.
"What I have seen too often in recent years is people are giving out drug paraphernalia and saying, 'Good luck, go use your drugs more safely. And we don't want to say that you shouldn't use drugs because some people view that as stigmatizing,'" he said.
But Laura Guzman, executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition, said there isn't enough treatment available for people who may want it right now.
"It's mandating or putting as a condition for people to receive life-saving supplies, to actually have long conversations about treatment that may not be available," said Guzman. "People who know in the field — researchers, doctors — are saying this is not good policy. We're actually going against the grain because what we're trying to do is have the perception that there is no drug use on the streets. But it's not public health, it's not science-based. It's exactly the opposite of what we know works."
The city feels that the harm reduction effort is simply enabling people to continue their addiction. And Dorsey said he only got help after people cared enough to make him face some hard truths about himself.
"Thank God that happened. If somebody had offered me a hotel room and a little money and said, 'Go use your drugs,' I might have taken that deal. And had I done that, I might not be alive today."
The policy goes into effect April 30.