by WILL JARRETTFEBRUARY 26, 2024 (Missionlocal.org)
Welcome back to our “Meet the candidates” series, in which District 9 supervisorial hopefuls respond to a question in 100 words or fewer.
Our week seven question: What would you do to reduce overdose deaths?
Julian Bermudez
Establish a drug buy-back program. We can all agree that the number one goal is to get drugs off the streets. My proposal will encourage people to surrender fentanyl or fentanyl-laced drugs for cash. The cash-back value will be higher than the street market price of the drugs turned in. This allows regular residents to take part in the removal of drugs from our streets, with a cash incentive.
I’m a businessman, and I aim to tackle our drug crisis like corporations ruin small businesses. Drug dealers don’t sell because they like selling drugs, but because they like the… Read more
h brown
Voters,
I would move to follow the European model and decriminalize all drugs.
Notice that I did not say “legalize.”
When you decriminalize, you take two of the three worst elements out of the equation.
First, you remove the cops, because nobody’s doing anything illegal here.
Second, you remove the dealers, because there is no profit for them.
Don’t insist on re-inventing the wheel.
Copy Switzerland and Portugal.
Did Prohibition teach us nothing?
Trevor Chandler
In the short term, we must consolidate our numerous crisis-outreach teams under one roof for greater communication and responsiveness to stop overdoses as they happen.
In the medium term, we must shift our strategy from harm reduction only to one that gauges the success of departments and nonprofit partners on how many people they direct into addiction treatment. Bringing someone back from death just to let them die slower is not kind, and it is not progressive.
In the longer term, I have proposed a bold plan at www.trevor4sf.com to make San Francisco a leader in fighting opioid addiction.
Jackie Fielder
Last year’s record number 806 overdose fatalities — disparately impacting Black San Franciscans and growing among Latino San Franciscans — demonstrates a broken status quo. I would call for a declaration of emergency to rapidly coordinate resources and provide true Treatment on Demand.
Portugal put decisions about drug policy into the hands of public health experts, and the result was 100,000 people in recovery. Mobile clinics, medicated assisted therapies (MAT), public education campaigns, street outreach, language access, wellness hubs, more dual diagnosis beds, research, tracking outcomes and, most importantly, staffing up so we can provide treatment 24/7 are all priorities for me.
Jaime Gutierrez
Addiction is a disease of isolation. Harm reduction by itself does not work. It is enabling addicts to isolate themselves. This needs to be rethought with an emphasis on community rather than dying alone.
The city needs detoxes where addicts can safely get sober, make a decision, and then obtain the resources they need to stay sober and recover by any means necessary, including medication or through mental health programs. They can learn to give back. San Francisco has become the place to come to get loaded and die, rather than a place to find a way out and live.
Roberto Hernandez
As a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, I understand firsthand the experience of a user and the time-intensive healing process — in my case, the last 28 years.
We need to improve the overall the health and well-being of people who use drugs by addressing social determinants of health by engaging those people and increasing availability and accessibility of substance abuse services.
A “Whole City” approach to overdose prevention means strengthened community engagement and social support for people at high risk, alternatives to drug use and solutions for deeper, undiagnosed health issues that are part of the city’s mental health crisis.
Michael Petrelis
We need to open storefront drug consumption sites along with using an RV for users to safely inject or inhale substances, with trained staff present to assist in the event of bad reaction or overdose.
Homeless users have no indoor location where they can be off the street and get high. Let’s give them a few hours to ride out their highs.
Opening the Tenderloin Center for a few months at UN Plaza saved lives, and reduced visible drug use on surrounding sidewalks. This band-aid approach undermined opening a secure and permanent consumption site, addressing long-term solutions.
Stephen Torres
We need to treat overdose deaths as what they are: A public health crisis. In San Francisco, we listened to doctors and scientists during Covid-19 and avoided the devastating death toll experienced in other places.
Many of us have already lost loved ones, neighbors, family and friends to this crisis. We cannot continue to blame, exploit and criminalize the victims of this epidemic for the sake of political gain. We must demand better. We must follow the public health evidence again — scale up effective interventions including treatment and avoid responses that make things worse — so we can save lives.
Candidates are ordered alphabetically. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at will@missionlocal.com.
Read the rest of the series here. Illustrations for the series by Neil Ballard.
You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
READ MORE CANDIDATE ANSWERS
Meet the candidates: SF’s District 9 supe race
by WILL JARRETTJANUARY 15, 2024, 5:00 AM
WILL JARRETT
DATA REPORTER. Will was born in the UK and studied English at Oxford University. After a few years in publishing, he absconded to the USA where he studied data journalism in New York. Will has strong views on healthcare, the environment, and the Oxford comma.More by Will Jarrett
