Global Courant
According to police data, the vast majority of people arrested during the San Francisco crackdown at open-air drug markets have come from outside the city. A recovery advocate says people from other provinces and states view the liberal city as a haven for illegal activity.
“Everyone knows that San Francisco has a more or less aloof approach to law enforcement,” recovering addict turned activist Tom Wolf told Fox News. “So they know if they come to San Francisco they can get high, they can probably score a free tent, get money from the government and get food stamps and health insurance, while living on the streets for free.”
A woman consumes an unknown substance on the sidewalk in San Francisco, California on April 14, 2023. (Flight Risk to Fox News Digital)
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San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said two weeks of a crackdown on drug markets in the Tenderloin neighborhood resulted in 45 arrests. Of the arrested drug users, only three reported being from San Francisco.
“The majority of the people we come into contact with… don’t live here,” Scott said at a recent San Francisco Police Department meeting.
Scott called the statistics “surprising” but could only provide anecdotal answers as to why more than 90% of alleged users were not local. He said he talked to people on the street and asked why they chose to do drugs in San Francisco.
“I’ve gotten answers like, ‘Drugs are cheap and plentiful, and you have an environment where it’s allowed,'” Scott said.
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Wolf was addicted to heroin and homeless in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood in 2018. His sixth arrest put him in jail long enough to get clean and reevaluate his life, he said. Now he is a recovery advocate and has often criticized the way city and state officials are handling the drug crisis.
“The fact is, San Francisco is a regional magnet for homelessness,” Wolf said. “We have robust services, everyone leaves you alone, and we have the cheapest drugs in California right here in San Francisco. That all needs to change if we are to save the city.”
At least a dozen of those arrested had other warrants, Mayor London Breed noted at a meeting of the Board of Trustees last week.
“People are evading their law enforcement obligations or their legal obligations in other counties and coming to San Francisco to go off the grid,” Wolf said.
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The San Francisco Police Department is targeting drug sales and “flagrant public use of illegal drugs,” according to Scott’s presentation at the police commission meeting. California Highway Patrol (CHP) and the California National Guard also assist local law enforcement at the behest of Governor Gavin Newsom.
In just six weeks, CHP seized enough fentanyl in San Francisco to kill more than 2.1 million people, according to Newsom’s office.
Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin. According to the medical examiner, it is responsible for the majority of overdose deaths in San Francisco.
Wolf thinks fentanyl “changes the game” by increasing overdose deaths and getting more people to demand action.
Homeless tents are seen in the Tenderloin neighborhood during heavy rain in San Francisco on January 11, 2023. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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“Voices like mine and others who have decided to raise their voices and say we’ve had enough,” said Wolf. “We come off the street with lived experience and say, ‘Look, I’ve lived this. I promise you, what we’re doing now isn’t working.'”
He added: “It forces our political leaders to listen and hopefully take action.”
Hannah Ray Lambert is an associate producer/writer at Fox News Digital Originals.
