San Francisco has long been a bastion of the far left – and now it’s paying a high price for its extreme progressive policies, including once-beautiful streets filled with dangerous syringes and human waste, resembling Third World back alleys.
The city has embraced an open drug culture at the same time it spends hundreds of millions of dollars to combat a growing homelessness problem. But no matter what the city does, it seems to have the opposite effect and make things worse.
Each year, San Francisco hands out millions of syringes to drug users – 4.45 million to be exact. San Francisco officials do this because they believe this is cheaper than the medical costs associated with injectable drug users getting diseases from sharing needles. Yet as always, politically correct progressive politicians never think about the law of unintended consequences.
Aside from the monetary cost of the syringes – over $500,000 – the needle giveaway failed to get rid of the problem it was targeting. That’s because the program that aimed to prevent the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other viral diseases is responsible for drug users littering the streets with needles infected with the diseases.
It may sound heartless, but before the free-needles program, the danger of shooting up with injectable drugs like heroin was only posed to those using the drugs. Now everyone is in danger.
A child picking up a discarded syringe without realizing what it is, a person walking in sandals, a tourist sitting on a park bench, or a couple playing with their dog in the park are all at a greater risk of getting the very diseases the city was trying to contain if they come into contact with infected needles used by ill drug users.
To fix this problem, the city is now spending tens of millions of dollars to try and clean up the problem it created. Mohammed Nuru, director of the Public Works Department, estimates his department spends about $30 million to clean up the needles and feces.
“Yes, we can clean, and then go back a few hours later, and it looks as if it was never cleaned,” Nuru said.
The increase in homelessness and public defecation has created other problems. When the fecal matter is left to dry on the street, particulates can go airborne.
Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, Berkeley, spoke to local reporters, warning about the dangers of fecal matter when it dries, specifically rotavirus. The doctor stated: “If you happen to inhale that, it can also go into your intestine.” The virus can be fatal...
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