San Francisco – The mayor of San Francisco Daniel Laurie, who won the elections in November on charges of pledged to contact the city’s fentanel crisis, announced a new public health policy on Wednesday that will push more strongly on drug users looking for clean needles and other supplies associated with their addiction.
The new policy, which applies on April 30, represents a major transformation of the strategies used by San Francisco in recent years to encourage – but not pressure – for illegal drug users in treatment, even with excessive doses of 800 in 2023. Reserve crawl.
For years, San Francisco and other cities have strengthened the growth of community programs that provide the so -called damage services. Such programs generally target people who have no shelter struggling with addiction, and sending street workers to distribute sterile syringes and clean smoking tools – chips, tubes and straw, for example – to prevent mobility diseases such as HIV and hepatitis.
The approach to reducing damage has strong defenders, who say the strategy helps protect people with drug addiction so that they are ready to abide by treatment. The strategy also has exhausted critics who say that the idea of ”interviewing addicts as they” did not prove sufficiently effectively in urging people to seek treatment or reduce death rates.
During a press conference in the city hall, Lori said that the days of San Francisco that reached drug supplies without linking people to treatment “have ended”, and that the excess dose crisis, which is fueled by fentanel, imposes a more aggressive response.
“We have a lot of work to do in this city,” Lori said. “We see people who are struggling with addiction. We see people dying from an overdose. We must make a change.”
Under the new policy, city employees and non -profit organizations that receive the city’s financing are prohibited from distributing sterile syringes and other supplies unless they actively work to link people to treatment and consultations. This policy prevents workers from passing smoking supplies in the streets, parks and other public places, instead that requires conducting such bulletins at home or in locations that have been deported in the city. It does not change the rules related to the distribution of clean syringe in public places.
“We are really trying to be proactive here, instead of waiting, and watching the people who die,” said Daniel Tsai, Director of the Ministry of Public Health at San Francisco.
The most stringent restrictions follow the Trump administration’s announcement last month that it was canceling Billions in federal scholarships This helps to finance mental health and addiction services throughout the country. The possibility of the main discounts in the federal financing of services at the community level is particularly concerned by San Francisco leaders, who face a Budget Nearly one billion dollars, starting this year.
Lori, who generally avoided talking about Trump during his first months in office, said his administration “will focus on what we can control now.” In recent weeks, he announced a series of political transformations to transfer San Francisco away from what its critics – and many voters – are considered a soft approach to deterring open drug use and drug use that suffers from some neighborhoods, including the city center and southern market areas.
Soon after assuming his post in January, Lori worked with the Council of Supervisors to pass a procedure that gives his office more power to overcome bureaucratic obstacles that slowed the expansion of shelter and treatment programs for the homeless, in addition to more space to follow up on special financing to finance these initiatives.
It works to open a “installation center” around the clock throughout the week in the heart of Tnderloin where the police can give up people who need medical care. It also pushes forward the promise of the campaign to open 1500 other therapeutic families.
Lori’s early efforts have sparked some street workers on the front lines who say it is abandoning the strategies that effectively prevent excessive doses.
Tyler Termeer, CEO of San Francisco AIDS, has warned that the new policy could lead to the transformation of more people from smoking drugs into their injection and increased the possibility of increasing the dose of infectious diseases and contracting them.
“The San Francisco Foundation for the firm AIDS stands, as we know, that providing people with the information and resources they need to take care of themselves, including the safest supplies and treatment and consulting services, is the best for the health of people who use materials,” Termener said.
Lori’s office said that the Ministry of Public Health will monitor the rates of excess dose, transport HIV and hepatitis “to ensure this policy is compatible with comprehensive public health goals.”
Lurie and TSai admitted that the new approach will not be easy to implement. For anyone, the city does not have any place near a treatment family enough to accommodate all those in need. The rules stop forcing people to treat. However, Lori said, San Francisco has to increase the status quo even as it expands his ability to treat and temporarily housing.
Lori said: “What we do not do.” “I will not sit and not take action.”