When it comes to drug treatment and housing for the Bay Area’s thousands of homeless addicts, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is that many if not most of those offered help refuse it. They simply prefer to remain living in the streets and to continue to use their drugs of choice. And we—civil society—are no closer to figuring out how to deal with this than we were years ago, when the problem first arose.
About three years ago, I remember being on a Zoom with Rebecca Kaplan, who then was demanding treatment and housing for homeless druggies. I asked the Councilwoman if she was willing to use force, if Oakland offered someone housing but the person insisted on remaining in his tent. Kaplan tried her best to dodge the question, as it raised uncomfortable issues for progressives, but I insisted, until finally, at last, Kaplan said that, Yes, she would be willing to use force. I didn’t believe her then, because this is something progressives don’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. But we’re going to have to deal with this problem.
The latest example was in yesterday’s news report on London Breed’s commendatory effort to arrest open-air drug users and dealers. During the first weeks of June, 53 people were cited or booked for public drug use in San Francisco, but “no one accepted services for treatment offered upon release” by the Department of Public Health.
We’ve heard similar stories here in Oakland: people simply refuse to move from their encampments (we saw that at Wood Street) and they refuse to enter drug treatment when it’s offered. Which leads to the question: Why are we investing vast amounts of money—at the city, county and State levels—in shelters and drug treatment, if people are unwilling to take advantage of the services? And this leads to the Big Question: How do we deal with these refuseniks?
We have to get real. Unless we as a society are willing to get tough with these people, we will never rid ourselves of the problems Oakland suffers from. But the progressives who run things will never accept compulsory treatment for druggies. Instead, they mouth platitudes about fairness and civil rights, and so far they’ve been pretty successful, as City lawmakers and cops are afraid to deal with druggies the way they ought to: with force. Instead of making arrests, cops are compelled to overlook rampant drug activity in the streets; they’re afraid of blowback, of getting sued or disciplined or even of losing their jobs. So cops will walk right past some local loser shooting up in the streets.
I absolutely reject the argument that we can’t use force to round up drug addicts and remove them from our society. Who says so—Cat Brooks? Since when do these people have the right to tell us which of our laws we can enforce, and which ones we can’t? How did we ever get into a position where we allow people to wantonly, brazenly break the law, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it? I would argue the answer is that too many progressives have no respect for the law, which they view as simply the apparatus of structural racism. Don’t forget, these progressives are constantly telling us that the system of policing we have today stems from the slave police of the 19th century, when slave owners hired mercenaries to hunt down runaway slaves. As a simple matter of history, this is a total lie—policing is inherent in English civil law, far predating slavery. But progressives, of course, never bother with the particulars of historical fact: if they can invent a myth that helps their cause, they’ll do it every time.
So let me do the politically incorrect thing and say it here, loud and clear: We have to get tough with homeless drug addicts. No more excuses. You don’t want treatment? Fine. We can’t force you into treatment but if you refuse, we can force you into jail, where you’ll stay until you agree sincerely to accept drug treatment. Let the ACLU howl at the moon. Let Pamela Price squeal how unjust it is. Let Carroll Fife make her little speeches. We don’t care. This is our society, not theirs, and we have the right to protect it, by forceful means if necessary.
Steve Heimoff