Faced with an unrelenting fentanyl epidemic and limited police resources, San Francisco for years has struggled to clear its sidewalks and public spaces of open-air drug use.
But Mayor Daniel Lurie is hoping a new, coercive approach could help officers tackle this problem while getting more drug users off the streets and connected to addiction treatment.
Early next year, the Lurie administration plans to open a new sobering center — overseen by the Sheriff’s Office and run by a city contractor — where officers could take people arrested for public drug use to sober up and get connected to treatment. The intent is to create a system that allows officers to quickly make such arrests and return to their patrol, circumventing a typical hourslong jail booking process…