Part of the problem on this issue is the lack of nuance. Nuance gets a bad rep- for many people, it equates to temporizing- but without nuance, the debate revolves around abstract templates instead of ground-level reality.
First, it has to be acknowledged that the status quo on the "drug issue" (as if there was only one) has permeated th…
Part of the problem on this issue is the lack of nuance. Nuance gets a bad rep- for many people, it equates to temporizing- but without nuance, the debate revolves around abstract templates instead of ground-level reality.
First, it has to be acknowledged that the status quo on the "drug issue" (as if there was only one) has permeated the social fabric, the institutional response, and the discourse. And the discourse of resistance and reform is often operating within reactive assumptions as a response to that status quo. As a result, clarity about the most relevant problems- and their solutions- gets lost, while the debate goes in circles.
The status quo here is Zero Tolerance and Criminalization. Don't imagine that the organizing paradigm has shifted anywhere else, just because there have been some moves toward decriminalization and low enforcement priorities, and a surfeit of rhetoric about "education, prevention, and recovery". The primary "treatment" for the most seriously addicted users is still Jail. A regime of forced abstention behind bars that is, to put in kindly, erratically enforced; in quite a number of correctional facilities, enforcement is a joke, and the illicit drug markets are rampant, organized, and run from the inside.
Zero Tolerance User Criminalization rests on some terribly invalid premises that function to exacerbate the problem by widening the target population to All Users, instead of focusing law enforcement energy on the core of addicts who generate public health problems, crime problems, and the denial of public space characteristic of open-air illicit marketplaces in the city streets, parks, and other areas of the public commons.
To break it down: not all illicit drug users are users of hard drugs; nationwide, around 3/4 of drug users who participate as buyers in the illegal market confine their purchases to cannabis.
To take it further, in any given year, around 3/4 of the users of "hard drugs"- cocaine, opioids, methamphetamine- use them only occasionally. Between once a year and once a week.
The remainder of that user population are considered "regular users", but not all are addicts. Of the fraction of regular users who are addicted, some are still able to function without attracting undue notice by law enforcement as habitual criminals. As a population, such addicts show up disproportionately in child neglect cases and DUI offenses. But they don't rely on street crime to pay for their habits, and whether by diligence or good fortune, they keep a roof over their heads. A sizeable number of such (quasi)functional addicts enjoy the advantages of class affluence, including the ability to pull strings when they find themselves in legal difficulty; this is not fair, but it isn't any different in that respect than the other advantages of wealth privilege in this society. Some of the others are able to hold down jobs that supply them with enough income stability that they can "afford" their addictions, at least in the financial sense.
The remainder of the Illicit Drug User population has hit the skids; they no longer have their habit under control, if they ever did. They're Dysfunctional Street Addicts. They don't obtain an income from working. A large fraction of them fund their addictions with crime- although not all of them do; some are actually able to feed their habits by begging on the street (a measure of how much disposable income is in the pockets of Americans, at least some of them; and also an indication of how inexpensive a bag of hard dope has gotten over the course of the past 40 years.) Other street addicts are prostitutes; however one feels about the decriminalization of prostitution, it will always be a hazardous game for streetwalkers, and addicted prostitutes are especially vulnerable. That said, even street addict prostitutes are usually able to make enough income to keep themselves from being unhoused on the streets.
Finally, we get to the addict population afflicting the streets, neighborhoods, and parks of San Francisco: they trespass. They use drugs in public, including injection drugs, and discard the needles. They use city alleys and even sidewalks as bathrooms, urinating and defecating in public. They shoplift, panhandle intimidatingly, and commit an array of offenses ranging from vandalism to residential burglary in order to commit property crimes to fund their addictions. Few of them bathe, certainly not regularly. Some of them own only the clothes on their backs, and sleep on the sidewalk winter or summer. In crowded environments like homeless encampments, they're often public health hazards. Dysfunctional addicts often overdose, sometimes more than once in the same day.
The response of the city of San Francisco to that population and their issues is "Decriminalization." A policy that I would support, were it only confined to drug possession. But for going on twenty years now, San Francisco and some other West Coast cities haven't just been granting decriminalization for drug possession; the authorities have also granted de facto impunity for trespassing, street camping, using public streets and parks as bathrooms, monopolizing publicly provided bathrooms and park benches, discarding needles, harassing and intimidating passers-by into giving them money, public intoxication (grossly and blatantly), and other activities that have resulted in addicted vagrants monopolizing public space in the city. Oh, last but no least, impunity for the failure to appear in court for hearings or unpaid citations.
My position is that decriminalization should extend to drug possession, but no further; if someone is found sleeping in a doorway, they're subject to arrest or citation. If they have outstanding warrant(s) due to failure to appear, they're subject to arrest and detention without bail. Misdemeanor recividism is a violation of the social contract; no one has any business scoffing at the law that way. Cars that get too many tickets get towed; petty criminals that stack up too many citations need to get sent to the pound.
But- and here's where the mercy comes in- we need Rehab Jail for street addicts. The courts and confinement facilities need to do intake evaluations to distinguish the population whose crimes are entirely due to their addiction from the smaller population of aggressive, violent, or predatory criminal offenders. (In the case of opioids, addiction can be detected by administering Naloxone, which induces withdrawal symptoms.) The population whose problems stem entirely from their addictions are the people who most need inpatient drug treatment, rehabilitation, counseling, education, and recovery therapy. Not for two weeks, or 30 days, or 6 months; for one year. At minimum, we need those jail facilities for dysfunctional street addicts to be airtight enough that they can't get any drugs when they're inside (with the possible exception of substances like Suboxone, which have some value in stabilizing the level of addiction for some opioid users. The controls need to be airtight, though.)
At minimum, we need to give the individuals who find themselves in that situation a year of dry time, to think it over. And we need to make it clear that if they return to their old patterns, they'll be subject to the same confinement and treatment regime. They can return to using and getting addicted; it's their decision. But they can't hang around unhoused on the city streets, funding their lifestyles with public money budgeted for their welfare.
The mandatory inpatient drug treatment program that I've just outlined.will require extra funding.
Considering that San Francisco's 2022 budget for homelessness is $598 million, I'd propose $500 million of that money be shifted to pay for it.
The other part of the problem is more complicated; we need to divert as much demand from the illicit markets into controlled and regulated channels as possible, within reason. That's a different discussion. But the criminal monopoly over the illicit drugs trade has expanded to the status of an societal institution, and the effect of that is so corrosive that measures have to be taken to replace that market with medicalization- and possibly even some level of legal markets for some forms of these substances- in order to effectively shrink down the remaining illegally supplied markets to a level where law enforcement methods are able to effectively curtail them.
Part of the problem on this issue is the lack of nuance. Nuance gets a bad rep- for many people, it equates to temporizing- but without nuance, the debate revolves around abstract templates instead of ground-level reality.
First, it has to be acknowledged that the status quo on the "drug issue" (as if there was only one) has permeated the social fabric, the institutional response, and the discourse. And the discourse of resistance and reform is often operating within reactive assumptions as a response to that status quo. As a result, clarity about the most relevant problems- and their solutions- gets lost, while the debate goes in circles.
The status quo here is Zero Tolerance and Criminalization. Don't imagine that the organizing paradigm has shifted anywhere else, just because there have been some moves toward decriminalization and low enforcement priorities, and a surfeit of rhetoric about "education, prevention, and recovery". The primary "treatment" for the most seriously addicted users is still Jail. A regime of forced abstention behind bars that is, to put in kindly, erratically enforced; in quite a number of correctional facilities, enforcement is a joke, and the illicit drug markets are rampant, organized, and run from the inside.
Zero Tolerance User Criminalization rests on some terribly invalid premises that function to exacerbate the problem by widening the target population to All Users, instead of focusing law enforcement energy on the core of addicts who generate public health problems, crime problems, and the denial of public space characteristic of open-air illicit marketplaces in the city streets, parks, and other areas of the public commons.
To break it down: not all illicit drug users are users of hard drugs; nationwide, around 3/4 of drug users who participate as buyers in the illegal market confine their purchases to cannabis.
To take it further, in any given year, around 3/4 of the users of "hard drugs"- cocaine, opioids, methamphetamine- use them only occasionally. Between once a year and once a week.
The remainder of that user population are considered "regular users", but not all are addicts. Of the fraction of regular users who are addicted, some are still able to function without attracting undue notice by law enforcement as habitual criminals. As a population, such addicts show up disproportionately in child neglect cases and DUI offenses. But they don't rely on street crime to pay for their habits, and whether by diligence or good fortune, they keep a roof over their heads. A sizeable number of such (quasi)functional addicts enjoy the advantages of class affluence, including the ability to pull strings when they find themselves in legal difficulty; this is not fair, but it isn't any different in that respect than the other advantages of wealth privilege in this society. Some of the others are able to hold down jobs that supply them with enough income stability that they can "afford" their addictions, at least in the financial sense.
The remainder of the Illicit Drug User population has hit the skids; they no longer have their habit under control, if they ever did. They're Dysfunctional Street Addicts. They don't obtain an income from working. A large fraction of them fund their addictions with crime- although not all of them do; some are actually able to feed their habits by begging on the street (a measure of how much disposable income is in the pockets of Americans, at least some of them; and also an indication of how inexpensive a bag of hard dope has gotten over the course of the past 40 years.) Other street addicts are prostitutes; however one feels about the decriminalization of prostitution, it will always be a hazardous game for streetwalkers, and addicted prostitutes are especially vulnerable. That said, even street addict prostitutes are usually able to make enough income to keep themselves from being unhoused on the streets.
Finally, we get to the addict population afflicting the streets, neighborhoods, and parks of San Francisco: they trespass. They use drugs in public, including injection drugs, and discard the needles. They use city alleys and even sidewalks as bathrooms, urinating and defecating in public. They shoplift, panhandle intimidatingly, and commit an array of offenses ranging from vandalism to residential burglary in order to commit property crimes to fund their addictions. Few of them bathe, certainly not regularly. Some of them own only the clothes on their backs, and sleep on the sidewalk winter or summer. In crowded environments like homeless encampments, they're often public health hazards. Dysfunctional addicts often overdose, sometimes more than once in the same day.
The response of the city of San Francisco to that population and their issues is "Decriminalization." A policy that I would support, were it only confined to drug possession. But for going on twenty years now, San Francisco and some other West Coast cities haven't just been granting decriminalization for drug possession; the authorities have also granted de facto impunity for trespassing, street camping, using public streets and parks as bathrooms, monopolizing publicly provided bathrooms and park benches, discarding needles, harassing and intimidating passers-by into giving them money, public intoxication (grossly and blatantly), and other activities that have resulted in addicted vagrants monopolizing public space in the city. Oh, last but no least, impunity for the failure to appear in court for hearings or unpaid citations.
My position is that decriminalization should extend to drug possession, but no further; if someone is found sleeping in a doorway, they're subject to arrest or citation. If they have outstanding warrant(s) due to failure to appear, they're subject to arrest and detention without bail. Misdemeanor recividism is a violation of the social contract; no one has any business scoffing at the law that way. Cars that get too many tickets get towed; petty criminals that stack up too many citations need to get sent to the pound.
But- and here's where the mercy comes in- we need Rehab Jail for street addicts. The courts and confinement facilities need to do intake evaluations to distinguish the population whose crimes are entirely due to their addiction from the smaller population of aggressive, violent, or predatory criminal offenders. (In the case of opioids, addiction can be detected by administering Naloxone, which induces withdrawal symptoms.) The population whose problems stem entirely from their addictions are the people who most need inpatient drug treatment, rehabilitation, counseling, education, and recovery therapy. Not for two weeks, or 30 days, or 6 months; for one year. At minimum, we need those jail facilities for dysfunctional street addicts to be airtight enough that they can't get any drugs when they're inside (with the possible exception of substances like Suboxone, which have some value in stabilizing the level of addiction for some opioid users. The controls need to be airtight, though.)
At minimum, we need to give the individuals who find themselves in that situation a year of dry time, to think it over. And we need to make it clear that if they return to their old patterns, they'll be subject to the same confinement and treatment regime. They can return to using and getting addicted; it's their decision. But they can't hang around unhoused on the city streets, funding their lifestyles with public money budgeted for their welfare.
The mandatory inpatient drug treatment program that I've just outlined.will require extra funding.
https://www.route-fifty.com/public-safety/2022/02/san-francisco-hundreds-homes-homeless-sit-vacant/362384/
Considering that San Francisco's 2022 budget for homelessness is $598 million, I'd propose $500 million of that money be shifted to pay for it.
The other part of the problem is more complicated; we need to divert as much demand from the illicit markets into controlled and regulated channels as possible, within reason. That's a different discussion. But the criminal monopoly over the illicit drugs trade has expanded to the status of an societal institution, and the effect of that is so corrosive that measures have to be taken to replace that market with medicalization- and possibly even some level of legal markets for some forms of these substances- in order to effectively shrink down the remaining illegally supplied markets to a level where law enforcement methods are able to effectively curtail them.
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