Newsom Faucets California Freeway Patrol, Nationwide Guard to Combat San Francisco’s Fentanyl Disaster
The proclamation Friday was reminiscent of Breed’s bold claim in 2021 that the city would crack down on the “bulls— that has destroyed our city,” which she said in announcing an emergency plan to address the drug and overdose crisis in the Tenderloin.
That effort brought together multiple city agencies to ramp up enforcement of dealing, clear sidewalks and offer new public health responses to drug use such as opening what became a supervised consumption site called the Tenderloin Center.
The facility closed at the end of 2022, a few months after Newsom vetoed legislation that would have allowed San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland to pilot safe consumption sites. Breed said the plan was only meant to be temporary and, on Friday, added the center “didn’t quite work out.”
Residents wait in line to get into the Tenderloin Linkage Center (also known as the Tenderloin Center), a now-defunct safe consumption site in San Francisco, on Feb. 8, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
After the closing of the Tenderloin Center and the emergency plan’s winding down, overdose rates have again increased in 2023, data from the Office of the Medical Examiner shows.
Meanwhile, public safety advocates applauded the governor’s decision to increase law enforcement around the issue, at a time when the San Francisco Police Department is struggling to recruit and retain a full workforce.
“Just the mere presence of our officers we believe will help deter and disrupt criminal activity,” Duryee said.
Newsom said that his plan “will not seek to criminalize those struggling with substance use and instead focus on disrupting the supply fueling the fentanyl crisis by holding drug suppliers and traffickers accountable,” according to a press release on the plan.
But addiction experts and advocates for people who use drugs say the move could nonetheless have unintended consequences, and negatively affect people who struggle with addiction and lack access to housing, health care or other support systems.
