Shellenberger: Why San Francisco Is Denying Reality

Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

The San Francisco Chronicle has acknowledged that the city is operating a supervised drug site, but the city continues to deny it. Why?

The San Francisco Chronicle today published an article confirming that San Francisco city government is operating a supervised drug use and drug dealing site on public property and within the auspices of a “Linkage Center” ostensibly to link homeless addicts to rehab. “The revelation that people are using drugs at the site was first reported on the Substack newsletter of Michael Shellenberger,” acknowledged The Chronicle.

San Francisco city government officials are denying that they are operating a supervised drug consumption site.

A “spokesperson for the Department running the linkage center denied the city was operating a supervised consumption site,” reported The Chronicle.

“When asked by The Chronicle what happens if someone tries to use drugs in the outdoor or indoor areas of the linkage center, and whether staff will allow the practice to continue, [spokesperson] Zamora did not answer directly.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed and members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have advocated a supervised drug consumption site, and purchased two properties in the Tenderloin to serve people suffering from addiction.

There is a reasonable debate to be had about whether there should be supervised drug use sites for hard-core drug addicts. The Netherlands, which is a model nation for dealing with addiction and untreated mental illness among the homeless, has 28 drug consumption rooms.

But San Francisco city government never approved the creation of a supervised consumption site at the linkage center and is moving forward with supervised drug consumption and drug dealing in ways that are totally inconsistent with the successful approach used by Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Lisbon, Vienna, and Zurich.

There is no doubt that the city is operating a supervised drug site. City contractors not only confirmed it to reporters Erica Sandberg, Leighton Woodhouse, and me, we witnessed drug use, another reporter witnessed a drug deal, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s reporter witnessed drug use at the supervised site.

But rather than be open about what it is doing, the San Francisco city government is denying it.

This is curious because the operators of the supervised open drug scene claim to want to reduce stigma around drug use. And it is curious because, in addition to the coverage by my Substack and The San Francisco Chronicle, The Daily Mail has published a second long article with 44 horrifying photos of the scene.

Why is that? Why is San Francisco’s city government denying that it is operating a supervised site for drug consumption and drug dealing?

The Denial Of Humanity

This is the view of the taxpayer-funded supervised drug consumption and drug dealing site in United Nations Plaza, a public space in downtown San Francisco. Around this site, which was taken over without authorization, are armed and violent drug dealers whose deadly, addictive, and intoxicating products kill two San Franciscans per day.

Read more here…