San Francisco is on track to open its first two safe injection sites this July, a milestone that will likely make the city the first in the country to embrace the controversial model of allowing drug users to shoot up under supervision. Other cities - including Seattle, Baltimore and Philadelphia - are talking about opening their own safe injection facilities, but San Francisco could get there first. Facilities already exist in Canada, Australia and Europe. Barbara Garcia, director of San Francisco's Department of Public Health, said Monday that she's tending to the details, including where the facilities will be located. She's working with six to eight nonprofits that already operate needle exchanges and offer other drug addiction services, and two of them will be selected to offer safe injection on-site. [continues 956 words]
When 74 percent of San Francisco voters last year backed legalizing the adult recreational use of marijuana statewide, the idea was to make it easier to buy and smoke pot - a substance that has never been that hard to buy or smoke in San Francisco anyway. Tell that to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The Keystone Cops of Cannabis have spent countless hours over endless committee meetings in recent weeks, devising ways to dramatically limit where people can buy and sell marijuana once the substance becomes legal for recreational use statewide on Jan. 1. [continues 1120 words]
Vacation Rentals. Ride Sharing Services. Parking Apps. City politicians like to regulate things, but they're struggling these days to keep up with ever-evolving technology and how it affects a host of industries. Just as officials begin to get a handle on how to, uh, handle companies such as Airbnb and Uber, up pops something like MonkeyParking. (Officials didn't have to figure out how to regulate that obnoxious app, which allowed people to auction off public street parking spaces, after City Attorney Dennis Herrera pointed out the minor problem that the scheme was illegal. Hey, why don't I borrow a free library book and then sell the right to read it to somebody else? Wait, that idea is probably being worked on right now.) [continues 794 words]
Mayor Ed Lee has so far set an eat-your-vegetables agenda for the year with balancing the budget, pension reform and job creation topping his to-do list. But this is San Francisco, and while (organic, locally grown) broccoli and spinach are important, we need a little spice. One mouth-watering proposal (for political columnists, anyway) is back on the table: a legal, city-funded center where intravenous drug users can get needles and shoot up without consequence. The idea comes from the city's Hepatitis C Task Force, created by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2009 in response to growing concern over the 12,000 San Franciscans infected by the disease, most of whom have no idea of their status. [continues 478 words]
The population of San Francisco's juvenile hall is likely to spike now that the city has reversed its policy of shielding juvenile illegal immigrants convicted of felonies from federal immigration officials, city officials said Thursday. And the undocumented youths are likely to see the length of their stays in detention increase dramatically as the juvenile probation department faces fewer alternatives to locking them up. At least one city official warned that many of the teenagers could be detained for a year or more. [continues 920 words]
While San Francisco's Behavioral Health Court has many supporters, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger remains skeptical the model should be expanded around the state. Last month, he vetoed a bill introduced by State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, which would have formally authorized Superior Courts around California to develop mental health courts and would have created minimum standards for them. Several mental health courts exist around California, but Steinberg hoped the law would encourage more counties to consider developing their own. He told The Chronicle addressing mental health is one of the keys to reducing recidivism and reforming the state's troubled, crowded prison system. [continues 142 words]
As debate rages over how to solve San Francisco's seemingly intractable homeless problem, city leaders, academic researchers and even some formerly homeless people themselves say progress is being made every Thursday afternoon inside Department 15 at the city's gloomy Hall of Justice. For a couple of hours each week, the courtroom fills with dozens of defendants with serious mental illnesses who have been charged with or convicted of crimes ranging from misdemeanor theft to felony assault and robbery. Almost all were homeless or on the brink of living on the streets at the time of their arrests, and many of them struggle with drug or alcohol abuse. [continues 1998 words]
About 150 people gathered Thursday in the Mission District to discuss an idea that some say is crazy even for San Francisco: opening a city-funded, legal center where intravenous drug users can congregate, get free needles and inject themselves in a safe environment. Momentum for such a center seems to be gaining strength among drug reform advocates and some public health workers, who say it will help stop the spread of HIV and hepatitis C, prevent deaths from drug overdoses and keep dirty needles off city streets. [continues 588 words]
Homeless Rousted: 4: 30 A.M. Wakeup For The Park Campers For 19-year-old Brandon Krigbaum, who goes by the name Repo Violence, the wake-up call came at 4:30 a.m. Police officers and homeless outreach workers rousted him and his friends from their sleeping bags Wednesday morning in an encampment on Chicken Hill, near Golden Gate Park's popular tennis courts. Similar awakenings happened throughout the park, as well as Buena Vista Park, Corona Heights and other outdoor expanses as Mayor Gavin Newsom's pledge to clear the city's parks of homeless encampments once and for all continued to take shape. [continues 1135 words]
City officials and nonprofit agency leaders, responding to an outcry over used syringes littering parks, say they are looking at ways to reform San Francisco's needle-exchange program - including locked, 24-hour syringe drop boxes and technologically advanced syringes. The city's needle-exchange program gives out 2.4 million needles a year and receives 65 to 70 percent of them back after they're used. Other cities - including Portland, Seattle and jurisdictions throughout New Mexico - have return rates of well over 90 percent. [continues 903 words]
By HEATHER KNIGHT, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTONThe Congressional Black Caucus introduced a new legislative agenda Thursday that targets the war against drugs, offering proposals to strengthen rehabilitation programs, expand the court system and increase antidrug education efforts. The caucus, chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters (DLos Angeles), also unveiled measures to exempt grandmothers and other caregivers from welfare reform, to build computer centers in lowincome communities, to reduce capital gains taxes for small businesses and to help rebuild schools. The new agenda is a marked departure from the Black Caucus' traditional demands for biggovernment spending programs, reflecting the predominantly liberal and Democratic group's need to work with a conservative, GOPled Congressand its desire to reflect the concerns of members' constituents. "In listening to our constituents, we have to always be on top of their beliefs," said Waters. "Our communities are devastated by drugs and we're tired of sitting here watching failing programs like 'Just Say No.' " The caucus has discussed its agenda with leaders of both parties, including Vice President Al Gore and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (RGa.), and said that it remains optimistic about the passage of its proposals. "We have no permanent friends. We have no permanent enemies. We have permanent interests," said one caucus member, reciting the group's motto. The group's legislative package contains 11 bills, with seven of them aimed at curbing drug abuse. The antidrug legislation would give an additional $300 million to rehabilitation programs in atrisk areas, create a radio and billboard antidrug campaign in lowincome communities, expand drug courts that prosecute firsttime or smalltime drug offenders, fund drug treatment in prisons, teach developing countries how to grow crops other than coca and establish a Justice Department program to monitor the confiscation and disposal of drugs by local police departments. Other proposals include exempting grandparents and other family caregivers from the work requirement contained in the welfare reform law, creating a small business development fund to assist women and minorityowned businesses, awarding grants to nonprofit organizations to build community computer centers and giving grants to public school districts to improve their buildings. The caucus said that these initiatives would not put any strain on the proposed budget deal because they could fit within planned funding. The caucus said that the proposals would benefit all Americans, regardless of race. "These are family and pocketbook issues that are of real concern," said Rep. Sheila Lee (DTexas). "So far, the 105th Congress has yet to get down to carrying out the business of the people." Copyright Los Angeles Times letters@latimes.com fax: 2132374712 [end]
