San Francisco seeks more ideas on fighting fentanyl crisis following chaotic forum

San Francisco was supposed to have a public discussion about the fentanyl crisis on Tuesday. It ended in chaos and with someone throwing a brick at city officials. So what comes next? That discussion picked up again on Wednesday.

“You know, people are struggling on our streets and they need to find hope,” said recovery advocate Steve Adami. “And we as a community need to inspire change within them.”

Another day, another event aimed at taking control of San Francisco’s drug crisis. This one on Wednesday, organized by a growing group of recovery advocates that want to make it easier for people to get help by offering recovery on demand.

“A simple concept,” explained Destiny Pletsch. “Have a bed available when someone needs it … That is not the case at all in San Francisco. Right now it takes around 10 days to get into treatment.”

While this push for change is coming largely from outside of City Hall, the mayor’s office is plotting changes as well. A pilot program will allow police to detain people “when someone is so far under the influence of drugs that they may pose a danger to themselves or others.” 

Details will be announced next week. Many of the city’s service providers say it will be a disaster.

“We know that from decades of the war on drugs,” said Gary McCoy with the nonprofit HealthRIGHT 360. “You can call this whatever you want to call it, but when you were prioritizing a carceral approach to people who use drugs that need help, you’re going to drive the overdose rates up.”

Divisions over how to help users and manage dealers are becoming old fault lines in San Francisco. What’s new are the growing calls to try something different, even if they have to make it happen themselves.

The episode at U.N. Plaza was just another step along the way, with gears moving in all sorts of directions. Different people, with different philosophies, trying to put together solutions. The question is what is that going to look like, how long is it going to take?