San Francisco Facilitates “Slow-Motion” Suicides and Allows Addicts to Use Drugs Without Treatment: User Recovery

San Francisco activists and ex-drug users are questioning a proposal that would provide addicts places to take illegal drugs as the city grapples with an unprecedented drug overdose crisis.

“Leaving someone on the street and injecting dope until they die is not compassion. It’s not progressive,” Tom Wolf, a drug rehabilitation advocate and former fentanyl user, told Fox News. “It doesn’t even really respect their civil liberties.”

“It lets someone kill themselves in slow motion in front of you,” he continued. “We shouldn’t normalize the fact that 600 people die from drug overdoses in San Francisco every year.”

In an effort to curb overdose deaths, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has supported efforts to open supervised consumption sites, centers where users can consume illegal drugs indoors under the supervision of trained staff. Additionally, a bill that would allow supervised consumption locations is making its way through the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city’s legislative body.

A FORMER FENTANYL USER SAYS SAFE INJECTION SITES ALONE WILL NOT ANSWER THE OVERDOSE CRISIS:

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“Regardless of how you feel about the locations, they’re probably coming to San Francisco,” Wolf said. “Overall, will it make a difference without doing all the other things we need to do, like dismantling the organized drug trafficking ring that operates in San Francisco, reducing the supply of drugs, improving people’s treatment options?”

“No, it won’t make a difference,” he continued.

Tom Wolf, a San Francisco Franciscan, credits a Salvation Army inpatient treatment program with enabling him to overcome his addiction and homelessness. (Fox News Digital / Jon Michael Raasch)

According to city data, there were over 2,900 accidental overdose deaths in San Francisco between January 2017 and December 2022. More than 1,800 of those overdose deaths were linked to the synthetic opioid fentanyl — outnumbering the city’s homicides, traffic fatalities and COVID-19 deaths combined over the same period.

In fact, drug overdose deaths outnumber homicides by nearly 10 times, city data shows.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year vetoed a bill that would have allowed cities like San Francisco and Oakland to open regulated consumption locations. He said they could lead to unintended consequences.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill last year that would have allowed safe consumption sites in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Each safe injection site in San Francisco could cost $2.6 million a year, according to the independent nonprofit Research Triangle Group.

“As we face this unprecedented overdose crisis, San Francisco is only skipping a few steps straight to safe injection sites,” Wolf told Fox News. “They’re not doing enough around prohibition to reduce the supply of drugs on the street.”

“They’re not doing enough to dismantle the organized drug trafficking ring operating in the public eye in San Francisco,” Wolf continued. “So my point is that they’re skipping all of those steps straight to safe consumption locations, which maybe should be in the continuum of care towards the end once we’ve got all the infrastructure in place.”

Advocates say investing in recovery treatments should take precedence over investing in harm reduction centers – sites that aim to reduce overdoses through a variety of services, including overdose prevention education and distribution of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone and drug supplies for safe use such as Syringes, aluminum foil and tubes.

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“We call it treatment, but harm reduction isn’t necessarily treatment,” Wolf said. “We actually need more inpatient treatment.”

Wolf said a six-month inpatient treatment program run by the Salvation Army put him on the road to recovery after being homeless for months.

According to a San Francisco Department of Public Health portal, there are 58 detox beds for withdrawal management and 245 inpatient treatment beds for short-term treatment to help addicts in the city. According to a study on supervised injection sites, there are an estimated 22,500 people injecting drugs in the city.

Activist depicts San Francisco neighborhood overrun by drug users and dealers:

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“We need to get drugs off the streets, make it harder for people to get high, make it easier for people to get treatment,” Wolf told Fox News. “And that means you have to invest in actual treatment.”

“Not just safe injection sites,” he said.

To watch the full interview with Wolf, click here.

Ramiro Vargas contributed to the video.