Whether it is an offer for acid at 8:30 am, the potent smell of marijuana that often persists throughout the day, or an unconscious person on the sidewalk on the way to HSM, Urban students are forced to grapple with – and are often subsequently desensitized to – the issue of drug usage. 

2020 and 2021 saw the highest number of fatal overdoses in San Francisco’s history, with 713 and 650 deaths respectively, numbers that are higher per capita than New York. California lawmakers have introduced Bill SB57 in an effort to address the issue of overdose deaths in California and to reduce instances of public drug use.

If passed, SB57 would lead to the creation of safe consumption sites, which are government sanctioned centers where the use of illegal drugs is legal and safe. This means that, under California law, those who use drugs in safe consumption sites would be exempt from prosecution. These sites are located indoors, and are staffed by trained individuals who are equipped with first aid kits that contain anti-overdose medications such as naloxone, clean needles, and other harm-prevention tools. Furthermore, individuals who use safe consumption sites would have access to information and services including but not limited to HIV or Hepatitis prevention and overdose prevention education. SB57 has provoked large amounts of discourse since its creation. It was introduced and authored by high-profile individuals, including the State Senator representing District 11, Scott Wiener. 

“San Francisco and other California cities are experiencing record overdose deaths, and safe consumption sites are a proven strategy to save lives and help people into recovery,” said Weiner in a statement about the bill. This ‘proven strategy’ that Weiner speaks of is backed in fact by the successes of other safe consumption sites across the United States. 

In New York City, safe consumption sites have saved a number of lives. According to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, from the construction of the two New York based consumption sites in late December of 2021 to late January of 2021 the sites “had already reversed at least 59 overdoses and have been used over 2,000 times.” These results in New York indicate that consumption sites are efficiently effective. 

A New York Times article describes the scene in one of these consumption sites, “some [users] were eating lunch, some were seeking refuge from the raw weather and some were dozing, quietly affected by whatever narcotic they had just taken.” 

Prominent opposers of the bill include the California Narcotic Officers Association (CNOA), who said the bill “‘alarmingly concedes the inevitable and immutable nature of drug addiction and abuse’ and would ‘normalize substance abuse.’” This idea calls into question the extent to which consumption sites actually discourage drug usage. Furthermore, there is some evidence that safe consumption sites don’t actually help very many people. According to a 2017 article by the National Library of Medicine in Canada, since 2003 “safe injection sites assisted only about four percent of all injections in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.” 

According to BeyondChron, a local online news site, since 2017 residents of District Five (which Urban is located in) have demanded the implementation of safe consumption sites on Haight Street. If SB57 passes, these sites would undoubtedly affect Urban students. At Urban, 68% of students support the bill while 25% are indifferent, and just 8.5% oppose it. Nearly half of Urban students had not heard of the bill before reading the survey description. 

Izzie Ballon ‘22 is a proponent of SB57 and believes that “people are too quick to call consumption sites negative.” When recounting an experience from just a few weeks ago, Ballon said, “I was getting off the bus at Civic Center and I literally had to step over two people shooting up in the street and a woman with a baby carriage had to do the same thing.” Ballon believes establishing safe consumption sites would mitigate the negative effects that public drug use can have on the community.

Nora Onek ‘23 shares similar feelings to Ballon. She sees safe consumption sites as “a good short-term solution to the [larger] problem…of drug use.” SB57 is meant to be a long term solution to overdoses in California. However, as Onek said, it does not do as much to mitigate the root causes of drug use, and therefore is only a surface level attempt at fixing a deeper problem. Onek also refutes the apprehensions people have to these sites, saying, “Consumption sites protect people who use drugs, there’s a misconception that they encourage drug use which is simply not true.” 

Though most Urban students support the bill, an anonymous student said that they think SB57 “destigmatizes the usage of hard drugs.” While they did not see this as inherently negative, they did fear that consumption sites would not do enough to combat drug use and therefore become proponents of usage.

In terms of how it would affect San Franciscans, Ballon feels that it would be beneficial to all. “I think SB57 would reduce the impact drug users have on the public, and would make both drug users and SF residents feel safer,” said Ballon.