(Headline USA) San Francisco Mayor London Breed is proposing paying drug-addicted welfare recipients cash to stay sober.
Along with San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Breed introduced a bill called “Cash Not Drugs,” which would provide the city’s welfare recipients with $100 in the form of a gift card or electronic benefit transfer every time they submit a negative drug test, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The underlining principle of ‘Cash Not Drugs’ is a simple one,” Dorsey said in a statement. “A humane and effective approach to San Francisco’s drug crisis should also include rewarding good behavior and not just punishing bad behavior.”
Breed said she wants it to be “easy to get treatment as it is to go out there and buy dope.”
The issue has been a pet cause of hers, having who lost her sister to a drug overdose.
“Whatever it takes to get people on the right path, that’s what we need to do,” she said.
However, on Breed’s watch the epidemics of homelessness and open drug abuse have continued to grow, turning one of the country’s most beautiful and beloved urban treasures into a literal s**thole.
San Francisco is running other programs that critics say make it impossible for addicts to get sober in the first place. The city’s “Managed Alcohol Program” for example, dispenses “controlled doses” of vodka and beer to homeless people at specific times of the day.
Breed’s bill could also undermine the voter-passed Proposition F, which allows the city to withhold welfare payments to recipients if they test positive for drugs and refuse to partake in a free treatment program. Welfare could only be withheld if they refuse treatment, not just if they test positive for drugs. The new policy is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
Breed has oscillated between a laid back approach to her city’s homelessness and drug crisis to a supposedly tough-on-crime approach.
“San Francisco is a compassionate city, but our compassion cannot be mistaken for weakness or indifference,” she tweeted earlier this year. “We need a safer San Francisco, and we need it now.”
