SAN FRANCISCO – Providing drug users with syringes and pipes for public health purposes keeps addicts “in a state of captivity,” a dealer-turned-activist told Fox News.
The city has established more than 20 harm reduction centers, sites that provide a variety of services including overdose prevention education, distribution of the overdose reversal drug naloxone, and safe-to-use drug supplies such as syringes, aluminum and pipes. The goal is to reduce overdoses and the spread of diseases, such as hepatitis.
“They should go back and rethink their policies here because this harm reduction site just doesn’t work,” Ricci Wynne, a drug withdrawal advocate and former drug dealer, told Fox News. Homeless people in San Francisco “don’t need more syringes, they don’t need crack pipes, they don’t need aluminum foil.”
Ricci Wynne, an ex-con accused of cocaine trafficking, in front of one of San Francisco’s harm reduction centers.
(Fox News Digital/Jon Michael Raasch)
“They need withdrawal-based treatment, they need to get clean, they need help getting back on the road to recovery,” Wynne continued.
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The San Francisco Health Commission passed a resolution in September 2000 adopting a substance abuse harm reduction policy in the city with the intent of reducing the physical, social, emotional, and economic harms associated with drug use, according to the city health department.
“Harm reduction methods are free of judgment and directly involve clients in setting their own health goals,” according to the department.
Drug dealers and drug users crowd across the street from the San Francisco Federal Building.
(Fox News Digital/Jon Michael Raasch)
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Wynne called the approach a “failed model” and likened harm reduction to putting a bucket under a leaky roof. He said it’s a temporary fix that doesn’t fix the root cause of the addiction.
“It basically allows these addicts to continue to live in a state of captivity,” he said. “It’s a lawless situation where there are no consequences for their actions, and they just continue to live this way.”
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Tents line the sidewalk of a San Francisco street.
(Fox Digital News/Jon Michael Raasch)
There were 556 accidental overdose deaths in San Francisco between January 2022 and November 2022, according to city data. More than 400 were for fentanyl.
Research is limited on the effectiveness of harm reduction services in preventing overdose, although the National Institutes of Health recently announced upcoming studies.
“Research is needed to identify ways to improve access to harm reduction services, as well as measure their effectiveness,” the NIH website states.
A city-funded initiative in 2021 handed out 50,000 doses of naloxone, resulting in some 4,300 reverse overdoses, the New York Times reported.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed and the board of supervisors have expressed their support for safe consumption sites, places where users can consume drugs under supervision, a local Fox affiliate reported last month. The city has been investigating the notion for years.
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“I’m really against these sites because you just have to ask yourself the question, what happens when the funding for these consumer safe sites runs out?” Wynne said. “What happens is these people are still out on the streets, but without treatment or any kind of recovery-based approach.”
“So basically they’re going to stay in this vicious cycle of consumption,” he continued.
To view Wynne’s full interview on Harm Reduction Centers, click here.
