SAN FRANCISCO, CA – At a San Francisco Board of Supervisors hearing held earlier this week, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) acknowledged that displacement is a deliberate component of its current drug enforcement strategy, even as community leaders, public health experts, and city officials questioned its effectiveness and urged a more holistic approach.
The hearing, convened by District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder and co-sponsored by Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Shamann Walton, Connie Chan, and Joel Engardio Mahmood, focused on the City’s partial implementation of the “Four Pillars Strategy,” a model that transformed Zurich’s response to public drug use and overdose deaths in the 1990s. The Four Pillars framework integrates prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement.
SFPD Commander Derrick Lew, representing the Department’s Drug Market Agency Coordination Center (DMACC), confirmed during testimony that displacement of people who use drugs is an expected and accepted result of their enforcement efforts. “It’s a known symptom,” Lew said, referencing DMACC operations that relocate drug activity from one neighborhood to another—most recently into the Mission District, which logged over 900 9-1-1 calls in March, the highest number in a decade…