Troubled Teens In Jail

My niece Adrian, who lives in San Francisco, has had it. She called to say they had decided to send their son to a military boarding school back East. The family had moved to San Francisco five decades ago, well before progressive politics took over the social policies of a once proud city. “He needs California knocked out of his head,” she joked. “It isn’t even safe to stroll through the park anymore, cause you just might end up stepping on a dirty needle. Everything that we love isn’t enough to keep us here. We’ll be leaving for back home soon too.” When I questioned her about dirty needles, she sent the following link. “The city hands out, no questions asked, an enormous number of needles, more than 2 million per year at last count. The reason: the city has an estimated 25,000 injection drug users. Among this crowd, shared needles can pass along hepatitis and HIV, but clean syringes will cut down on infection. It’s a real-world accommodation to the drug abuse that exists….it has reached the breaking point as far as public trust. Why? Because dirty needles show up in public places where users congregate and toss them away. They’re on sidewalks, lawns, in alleys and doorways. Intended to minimize risk, the needles can do just the opposite… What kind of city allows its population to freely dump such potentially deadly waste on the civic lap?… Right now, the program amounts to a giveaway with no requirement or provisions for returning the needles or disposing of them safely. If users won’t take responsibility, then the city needs to step in.” Adrian added, “If they just ended the program, admitted it failed and started cracking down, that’s one thing. But continuing it is insane. I’m certainly not going to raise my kid in the schools here, trust me.” August 20th, 2007 by Ann Walker