Gov. Gavin Newsom shrugs off community activist who asked him for a plan to combat fentanyl crisis
During a surprise visit to San Francisco’s Tenderloin district on Wednesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom declined to answer a community activist who asked him how he plans to handle the ongoing fentanyl crisis.
JJ Smith, an activist who documents the horror he sees on the streets of San Francisco, said when the governor walked past him, he asked, “What are you going to do about this fentanyl epidemic?”
The governor, who just seconds earlier had given a theatrical wave to people watching him as he took his walk, pointed to Smith’s question, saying, “What should I do, JJ?” … I want you to tell me what to do.’
Smith later recounted the back and forth, saying the governor “shrugged me off” [sic]’ and did not answer the question.
‘I am a citizen, I pay taxes. I have paid taxes in San Francisco for many years and I earn it [for him to] at least stop and tell me about that,” said Smith, whose online videos often document the tortured lives of those addicted to fentanyl living on the streets.
Of Newsom’s unexpected visit to the Tenderloin—an area of town known for its high crime rate and illegal drug activity—Smith said, “You can’t walk down the street and think you’re going to see it all.”
He added that Newsom and his entourage were walking down the street at a clear and sunny hour of the day when they were unlikely to see any wrongdoing.
“I’m on the street, I know what’s happening on the street,” he said.
“People at City Hall can’t tell you what’s happening on the street because they don’t know.”
Smith said he saw the governor again later and asked the same question, to which the governor replied, “I’m here to work on it now.”
Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta were joined Wednesday morning by San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s chief of staff for a walk through Tenderloin and South of Market counties.
The previously classified visit focused on the fentanyl crisis. The governor’s spokesman said the visit was a cabinet meeting that Newsom holds from time to time.
The two areas are considered the epicenters of the city’s drug and homelessness crisis.
New numbers show a 41 percent increase in overdoses in San Francisco in the first three months of 2023, compared to the first quarter of last year.
Two hundred people died in those months from an accidental drug overdose, the vast majority of which involved fentanyl.
Recently, politicians in San Francisco have looked to outside sources for help in managing the problem.
Aaron Peskin, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, sent letters to Governor and Representative Nancy Pelosi last week asking for federal and state assistance to help improve conditions on the streets.
Smith confronted Newsom, who said he was in town discussing policy solutions to the ongoing fentanyl crisis that Smith regularly documents
The governor of California recently boosted a new political action committee with $10 million to help Democrats win in red states ahead of the 2024 election and what a future candidate for president could be
The unnamed woman had to have both her feet amputated because she did not want to seek medical treatment for the flesh-eating disease
Homeless men are seen on a sidewalk near San Francisco City Hall, where lawmakers are increasingly devising relaxed policies that don’t protect any portion of the city’s vulnerable population
Public policy in San Francisco has continually allowed a towering homeless, drug-addicted, and mentally unstable population to rule the city’s streets.
The city also faces an increasing problem of violent crime. Tech exec Bob Lee became one of the city’s latest murder victims last week.
San Francisco’s homeless number was counted at nearly 8,000 in February last year, the second highest since 2005, according to the government’s official census that takes place every three years.
It has almost certainly exploded since the last count.
Various liberal politicians and city leaders have attempted to implement numerous policies to curb the many problems created as a result of the growing homeless and drug-addicted population.
One specific harm reduction policy that failed was last year’s opening of the Tenderloin Center, which was intended to alleviate the city’s drug and homelessness crisis.
It cost the taxpayer a staggering $22 million and was supposed to be a “safe place” for addicts to “get high without getting robbed” and without fear of fatal overdosing.
It also intended to direct users to help centers, although during its first four months of operation it only referred 18 people out of the more than 23,000 people welcome to the site.
Overall, less than one percent of visits ended in a “complete pairing” with behavioral health programs.
Despite their efforts, more than 500 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco by 2022. In 2021 there were 641.
Many people living on the streets suffer from serious illnesses that are often exacerbated by substance use.
Homeless people are seen in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco
Last month, a homeless woman was filmed having both her feet amputated following an illness for which passersby begged her to be treated.
On February 6, JJ Smith filmed the shocking first clip of the woman refusing medical attention for her damaged feet.
In a heartbreaking follow-up posted on March 30, it appears the woman didn’t take his advice when she showed up in a wheelchair with stumps.
In the February video, the wild-eyed woman, who appears to be foaming at the mouth, refuses the videographer’s offer to take her to the hospital to treat the infection on both her feet.
“Let me take you to the hospital,” he says.
“No, no, no,” she replies, sitting on a pile of dirty materials.
‘Your feet are [sic] gets cut off if you don’t fix it,” Smith said.
“It will be sorted out, I promise,” she insisted.
Further details about the cause of the woman’s illness have not been disclosed.