District 5 SUP candidates discuss damage control

This is the latest in our ‘Meet the Candidates’ series for District 5, in which we ask each candidate to answer one question per week leading up to the election. Four candidates are challenging incumbent Supervisor Dean Preston to represent District 5, which extends from the east side of Golden Gate Park through Haight-Ashbury, Japantown and the Western Addition, the Lower Haight and Hayes Valley, and most of the Tenderloin .

Returning to regular programming after taking a week off – if you would like to read some of the questions I asked District 5 Supervisor candidates during a forum last week, read Kelly Waldron’s reporting here.

This is this week’s question: What are your thoughts on harm reduction and the way San Francisco is using harm reduction practices to address addiction and street conditions? Would you like to improve or change certain aspects of our approach?

Zane Preston

• Function: Sitting tenant, tenant’s lawyer
• Age: 54
• Residence: Homeowner, in District 5 since 1996
• Transport: Public transport
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College, Juris Doctorate from University of California Law, San Francisco
• Languages: English

Damage control is one an evidence-based strategy to minimize infections, reduce overdose deaths, and meet people wherever they are to reduce the negative consequences of drug use.

Despite efforts to pit harm reduction against treatment, San Francisco’s Overdose Prevention Plan – like our state and federal public health agencies – recognizes these strategies are necessary to save lives and help people get better. Unfortunately, the mayor closed the Tenderloin Center, an overdose prevention (OPS) site that reversed 333 overdoses in eleven months.

We must follow Plan an overdose prevention plan, open additional OPSs and continue to ramp up efforts to connect people to treatment.

Endorsed by: Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Senator Bernie Sanders, Public Defender Mano Raju, United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco Tenants Union, National Union of Healthcare Workers… read more.

Scotty Jacobs

• Function: Marketing
• Age: 30
• Residence: Tenant in District 5 since November 2022, homeowner
• Transport: Public bicycle
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Washington University
• Languages: English

Harm reduction is part of the care continuumbut using harm reduction as a justification for letting people – many of whom cannot help themselves – die in slow motion on the streets is inhumane, brutal and a moral failure. The fentanyl crisis is unlike anything before on our streets – and requires a multi-pronged approach.

We must: