San Francisco Gets a New Mayor and an Emergency Plan for the Fentanyl Scourge

Within minutes on Wednesday morning, San Francisco got a new mayor — and a new plan for an emergency declaration intended to combat the fentanyl scourge that has killed thousands of people in the city over the past five years and has turned some neighborhoods into sidewalk drug markets.Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, was sworn into office outside the gold-domed City Hall and began to detail his campaign promises about fighting the city’s drug crisis, which has claimed more lives in the city since 2020 than have Covid-19, car crashes and homicides combined.Mr.

Lurie said that he had told his police and sheriff’s departments to redirect their personnel — moving from a temporary, sporadic effort to break up drug markets to a permanent, 24/7 operation.He vowed that by this spring, police officers would have somewhere new to take people picked up for using drugs or for acting erratically in public — not just a jail or a hospital emergency room.A crisis center in the Tenderloin neighborhood will be staffed with health workers who can guide those who need treatment.“Widespread drug dealing, public drug use and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security,” Mr.

Lurie said from an outdoor stage under sunny blue skies.“I refuse to believe that this is who we are.”His declaration of a fentanyl emergency, which he promised after winning the hotly contested mayor’s race in November, consists of a package of ordinances that will speed its way to the Board of Supervisors, akin to a City Council, on Tuesday for what is expected to be swift approval.The declaration would streamline the hiring of new city workers and the building of homeless and drug treatment facilities.

A new ordinance will also allow the city to accept private donations to help fund Mr.Lurie’s promised 1,500 new shelter beds within six months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you ...