By an edhat reader
Two men were found unresponsive at the corner of Nopal and Quinientos Street this morning.
Police arrived just before 9 AM, and a medical response team followed. It appears that they were not able to revive one of the men.
Fatal Overdose on the Eastside
Anonymous
May 25, 2022, 9:15 am
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No surprise. You have homeless people in vans parked along streets selling narcotics all day long. To make money I’m sure they are cut with something else.
Randy Rowse – what are you working on these days?
The idea that somehow there is a homeless lifestyle of drug sellers and drug users frequenting known locations ignored by the cops and straight society is so full of bias and ignorance as to be laughed at, I hope. The homeless are not likely to be selling drugs and they are not much able to buy drugs either. If you want to watch the high traffic drug markets go check of the lower St ate Street bars and the wine “tasting” rooms crowded by affluent members of society (or their offspring).
Check out the area around Post office off Milpas…
1:21 PM – exactly. Have cops patrol the bathroom areas in downtown bars more often. The amount of cocaine snorting would blow most of your minds if you knew. The homeless are engaged in drug dealing/using though, there’s no denying that. But that is such low level dealing, it’s very unlikely busting a homeless street dealer or user would produce any valuable intel. Again, go after the highly visible street deals and the bars. There are dealers roaming the bars with LARGE amounts of cocaine, MDMDA, etc. Bust one of those guys or gals and get them talking if you truly want results.
Zero, yes sir, compassion is never a mistake.
Suzi805: Thank you for your well-written comment and insights. Without going into a whole lot of detail, I’ve lost two family members due to their poison of choice. One drank herself to death over a period of 20-plus years (died at home with family around), and the other “accidentally” OD’d on fentanyl, but it just as easily could have been the meth, the booze, cocaine, etc. Why someone on this board is making fun of these losses saying that it was Advil is simply uninformed, mean-spirited, or just a major a$$whole ….. do not understand these folks, but that’s how they get their joy, which is making things painful to others for no reason other than to make things worse for those who have had to suffer through such family tragedies. I also had a sense of relief when each of these family members passed on. Advil? Really?
Enabling alcoholism and drug use can reach a point where isn’t compassion, it is complicity in near certain death.
People can get so deep into drug abuse that foorced intervention is their last option. Have you seen videos of drug abusers attacking first responders the day after their life was saved by the first responders administering Narcan? The drug users are irate because they paid good money for a hit and the first responders administered Narcan, which wrecked the high without permission.
Its kind of like a red flag law for crazy people who own guns, its a red flag law for crazy people who do drugs, help others do drugs. red flag means loss of civil rights. What is a more imminent threat to the life of self and others than an addict shooting up so much dope they need Narcan?
The state of Tennessee just made it a felony for homeless individuals that camp out in parks, on public property and sleeping in their vehicles. First state in the union do implement this. If the state of California ever gets a Republican Governor, they just might implement a state felony for those who are homeless living on the streets, parks and in their vehicles. That will certainly clean up the city of Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara county.
GIMLI “Tennessee already made it a felony in 2020 to camp on most state-owned property. In pushing the expansion, Sen. Paul Bailey noted that no one has been convicted under that law and said he doesn’t expect this one to be enforced much, either.” Great – we could have another law not enforced in SB… like no public smoking, no oversized vehicles, no gas-powered
blowers….. But you can cross your fingers – but don’t hold your breath – on getting that Republican Governor.
GIMLI – a person died and all you can do is hope they make it a felony for being homeless? I hope all you haters get a taste of homelessness or at least devastating poverty once in your life. Shame on you.
I am curious how many citations have been issued since we enacted the smoking ban.
Hey Sacjon, we might disagree on who should be our SB County School superintendent, but sounds like we see eye to eye on the homeless issue.
PIT – that’s great! You see? People can disagree but still have compassion.
Y’all need to demand accountability & transparency of the Narcotics enforcement detectives. There are NO arrests of dealers! We know that they operate with impunity in “paradise.”. More drugs equals more homeless. Thus is a fact. Strange that surrounding cities arrest dealers, but not here! SLO has public announcements on a regular basis, for example. The excuse police offer is lack of staff, yet the man in charge gets paid $131,000 a year. For what? Oh and all the so-called non-profits pay hefty salaries to their directors, yet do very little with no innovation or workable solutions. Other states have navigation centers so that showers, counseling and storage (so all that stuff is not lugged around town). Even Texas has art centers for the homeless, & allow them to sell their art…building confidence & dignity. And smoking bans are useless…better to stop the toxic particulates spewed by leaf blowers. One plume from a leaf blower is equivalent of 6,000 cigarette smoke!! Goes deep into your lungs , causing all manner health issues
AND, not all homeless are addicts or troublesome
…just unlucky.
AWARE – you keep saying that our PD does not arrest drug dealers. Where did you hear/read that? Is it a policy they have?
I haven’t been in the area where these two were found for a long time. Is this an area where homeless with/without cars/RV’s hang out and sell narcotics?
I am back from a short deployment to Ukraine (leaving again in a month) and I come back to this… Sac, missed ya. I’m with you 100% here. Yes of course all they want to make being homeless a felony. Americans are mentally challenged for the most part when it comes to how to treat one another and how to help those that need help. Here we persecute them and prosecute them. Just because thier lives aren’t perfect and they have problems that you can’t accept. You people have no freakin’ idea how lucky you all are. The terrible things I saw over there make me love what we have so much deeper. Two men have addiction problems and needed help. They fell through the giant cracks in our society and our society abandoned them as it always does. One of them dies next to his friend. But the community response is full of hate and anger? I just left a battlefield full of hate and anger and come home to this crap. Show some empathy and humanness for once. Sac seems to be the main logical thinker on this forum. Still.
Aware, our problem is that a bunch of us lefties wanted to defund the police! (not me!) and guess what….it has happened. Our city PD is massively understaffed. They don’t even have enough officers and detectives to do their job for us. Because a lot of us complained and cried foul because some cops in another state are murderous thugs. I have several close friends that are SBPD, they are stretched very thin, working long hours and getting no thanks. Ive called the narco detective several times to report something i witnessed upon my return, three calls and no call back. Regarding heroin sales on a local school campus. No call back.
ZERO! Hey bud, glad to see you around here again. Yeah, it still infuriates me when we have an article about a (possibly in this case) homeless person dying and the regular bunch come in guns a blazing demanding we imprison or encamp (RYPERT where are you?) the homeless so we don’t have to see their tragedy and pain anymore.
This is the problem here. Drug dealers (street dealers at least) are easily identified and observed, yet we’re apparently not going after them. DOULIE proposed going after the users, but if we won’t even attempt to arrest these brazen public dealers, we’re never going to make any headway.
Zero, they didn’t fall into a crack, CA’s policies on allowing open drug use, lax criminal enforcement, and lack of mandatory addiction treatment, among others, shoved them down into the abyss. To have saved these people would have required their arrest for illegal possession and/or consumption of a controlled substance and a choice – jail or rehab. Allowing this behavior to go uncontested, will only lead to more death. Separately, I 100% agree people often forget how amazingly great we have it here in the US, faults and all.
RHS, those two teams are linked and it starts with the first team (police) and the users are give a choice – accept the help of the second team (social work/drug intervention) or go to jail.
“CA’s policies on allowing open drug use” – Please cite those “policies.”
VOICE – is your “rehab or jail” option to be used in all cases, regardless of the drug or the number of offenses? Will people on LSD be required to choose between rehab or jail? What about a college kid who is busted (1st time offender) for being under the influence of an opiate because he was curious and popped a pill at a party? Still jail or rehab? Neither would help in these cases.
Thousands of young kids in college die each year from OD who aren’t addicts. Many drugs can kill you the first time you use them if you aren’t careful. So, how do we deal with the non-addicts?
Not saying I disagree with this idea, but saying it can’t and shouldn’t be applied to all cases. It’s not just a simple black/white all/nothing solution.
VOR please keep your politics and your fake poorly thought of “policies” out. This is a topic of reality, not someone angry because the guy in the office isn’t on your team. Yes they did fall into a crack and I bet, my entire years salary that you have an addict somewhere in your family. We all do somewhere. So instead of looking at these people with disgust, look at them as human beings who need help. Sometimes we don’t know how to ask for help and sometimes we are afraid of what the help will change, but knowing that change is needed. There is no open drug use policy, there is no lax criminal enforcement, there is no lack of mandatory treatment. Drug use aside of what is legal, is illegal and remains illegal. Arrests for narcotics do happen frequently, we don’t hear about it due to SB’s keep it quiet or the tourists won’t come, policy. There is a massive shortage of City PD. There is a massive flood of heroin and meth in town. More so than ever before. We don’t even have enough cops to take care of that. Many users that are repeat offenders go through counceling and rehab which does not work for everyone. I have a close friend that is an addict of the highest order. It doesn’t matter what it is, caffeine even. This person will guzzel two gallons of coffee each day, smoke two packs a day of cigs and then plow through an bag of weed in a few hours. This person is my age and has addiction issues their entire life, rehabs etc. Some people are just wired to be addicts, some are wired to not be. Like myself. If i want to not do something, i just don’t do it. Not everyone has that mental switch. Arrest and prosecuting people for being homeless and or addicts is wrong across the board and a HUGE waste of tax money and resources. They need to be arrested, then counselled and then sent to rehab for 60 days, locked up in that rehab. That won’t happen either. We are at a point in our society were we are getting what some asked for and now we don’t know how to handle that. It’s a problem. Homeless is a massive problem in our country.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/23/1099478640/california-safe-injection https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10439965/Photos-new-linkage-SF-facility-populated-drug-users-shooting-broad-daylight.html https://www.city-journal.org/san-franciscos-harm-reduction-policies-a-nightmare https://ktla.com/news/california/san-franciscos-vaunted-tolerance-dims-amid-brazen-crimes-open-drug-use-and-dirty-streets/ https://www.kqed.org/news/11909484/new-tenderloin-site-highlights-challenge-of-connecting-people-to-drug-treatment-and-housing-services
Zero my “policy” was exactly what you said was needed: “They need to be arrested, then counselled and then sent to rehab for 60 days, locked up in that rehab.”
“not meant to cover every type of drug incident, but specifically to the article at hand. ” – Exactly my point. You have no idea if these were seasoned addicts or some drunk kids who tried heroin or oxycontin for the first time and OD’d on the street. So, again…… what do we do about situations like I mentioned with 1st time users? It’s a perfectly valid question when discussing a “rehab or jail” policy.
I feel like you are absolutely unable to discuss things with people who don’t share your exact same view about everything. I’ve never once seen you here concede to another idea or even attempt to find common ground. You either make up complete lies about someone’s comment, then try to argue with them about something they never said or you just proclaim everyone to be wrong about everything you don’t agree with, even when they prove you are wrong. It’s unhealthy.
Drug users and addicts know the risk they are taking and still CHOOSE to use. I no longer feel sorry for them or even have much empathy for their unresolved traumas that lead them to continue to self-medicate. We all have our issues, nobody I know has ever sailed through life unscathed. In my experience, I feel that life is supposed to be challenging, it’s how we grow and learn to navigate the world in which we are all living. I have no respect for anyone who thinks they can outrun that fact and especially run from themselves by using drugs to the extent of homelessness or death. That is their choice, their journey. So when they overdose on a city street and die, that to is a choice. They absolutely know all the risks and it’s only a matter of time before they’ll end up dead or in jail. There are Drug rehabs, city-run outreach programs… And no, they are not hard to find, they are just a phone call away… in fact, the one I am aware of in SB is right downtown on Haley street next to that park where they hang out. If someone wants to get help, they will… nothing will hinder them from getting well, they will fight for their lives … they will use the same focus, commitment, and determination to get well as they did to get high. No amount of hand-holding, no prayers, begging, or tough love will make a bit of difference to the addict until they come to that conclusion for themselves. It’s their life, they have to be the ones to live it as good or as bad as they make it, we cannot want them to be healthy more than they want it for themselves. I know this first hand, I have lost my two childhood best friends to drug overdoses, as well as 6 other friends to ODing, I have lost others to suicide, prison, or just lost to the world and to themselves. I have been forced to examine the darkest reaches of the human existence while dealing with and overcoming my own traumas as well as loving addicts while they are going through hell. From those experiences I was left with no other choice but to accept the facts, it is what it is, it’s always been their choice to live and die this way, not mine. I am not a God, I am powerless to fix anyone,… I have addiction issues on both sides of my family, I have many people who I have loved and lost because of their choices. I am not bitter, not jaded, I am not cold, and heartless. I have experienced firsthand what the choice of addiction does to people and their loved ones. I have been “woke” by it all. So when the headline reads two OD’s on the SB E.side with one fatality… I don’t feel anything but relief for that soul that has departed. Their death on that sidewalk yesterday was their journey and it ended there in that way. If they still have loved ones, those are the people who I empathize with since they are the ones left dealing with the issues and the aftermath. I can only hope that their suffering will subside in time. I firmly believe that addiction is not a disease, it is a choice. We are all born with an innate sense of self-preservation… addicts try to numb that and run from that all the while claiming to be victims. They victimize themselves when they choose that life…they dishonor themselves by using their past, and those who caused them harm by continuing to harm themselves long after that abuse and trauma… there is treatment out there accessible to anyone who seeks it, you just have to want it more than you want anything else in life. There is no real hindrance to healing except the bs excuses one tells themselves. Hopefully, their OD death will be a cautionary tale to the others who are just like them, destined to have an unceremonious death on a sidewalk because that is what they are aligning towards. Their choice. Please Do NOT try to debate me, I have witnessed the addiction lifestyle time and time again. I know what I know and you will not convince me otherwise. I Choose to preserve myself, my sanity and to protect myself from all things that I cannot control. That includes every other living soul. I hold space for those who I have loved and lost, but I have in a sense, given up hope for them until they demonstrate for themselves that they have accountability for the way they chose to live their lives. That has been my experience with addicts and the hell they leave in their wake of self-destruction. I have learned to let go and let whatever will be, will be.
who cares VOR…and if you truly care that much, pick up the phone and call the PD and speak to the detetives that handle this and ask them, not us. I will say this, smoking isn’t illegal like you want it to be. They aren’t going to issue a ticket for that. They may do so if the person is obnoxious about it, but generally they are told to put it out. I’ve watched cops on state street tell ppl to put it out and demand they do on the spot. that’s good enough for me
no where does it say what drug they OD’d on. so calm down arm chair detectives
if it was Advil would you all be advocating for CVS’s to be closed? Show some compassion for a sec and realize one life has ended.
Sad but so true Suzi
zero – this post about how our community responded with anger and distain…….. im with you on that. gezzus man…..
stay safe dude.
Maybe you may not think so, but I think you are very jaded and cold to the issue. Much of what you say is logical and true, but there is always room for compassion. RIP to this person, regardless of their life choices.
This is sad on a number of levels, but the level that stands out the most is what Edney said and that is “Enabling alcoholism and drug use can reach a point where it isn’t compassion, it is complicity in near certain death.”
In the process of “showing compassion” to the addicted “housless neighbors” -who happen to be the same demographic behind many of the crimes committed in the areas they reside in- we have created a living hell for them and us.
Sure, “leave them alone!” is the cry we hear from the compassionate enablers, but we hear very little in the form of an actual solution and when somebody offers a novel approach or the sheer truth, these individuals go up in arms with the cries of being “heartless to the houseless” and other cute slogans.
I also have to add, the individuals involved in this sad situation, yes, they were of the “houseless neighbor” demographic, so for the “How do you know they were homeless” decriers, look it up, it’s all there on public record. Sorry, but facts are facts and facts amount to truth. Deal with it.
We need more people like Suzi telling it how it actually is. I can tell from her tone and words that she has had firsthand experience with addicts and she is fed up.
She also happens to express the voice of many who feel the same, but are afraid of speaking out for fear or retribution from the enablers.
Kudos to Suzi for sharing truth, fact and reality with the community here and while she may not seem “nice” in her words, she does offer an insight to the way it really and actually is.
Then there is Gimli and his story of getting out of homelessness. The huge factor in his success is the fact that it was NOT drugs that caused his situation in any way, it was pure and simple economics.
He also dispels the myth that homelessness creates addicts. It does not.
Addicts create homelessness for themselves and then harassment of neighborhoods and communities through their actions follows. We’ve seen it here incessantly.
Gimli, I thank you for sharing the facts and commend you on your resolve to get out of that situation, you are proof that those who WANT the help WILL accept the help and move forward. Thank you for that!
So there is a question I have to pose to the peanut gallery here and that is “Who are we to deprive the “houseless neighbors” of the drugs they crave?”
Seriously, these individuals, they will go to any extent to get the drugs of choice, so why must we be puritans about the issue of “houseless neighbors” and the availability of drugs for them?
What we CAN have say over is where they’d be allowed to do such drugs, with the best outcome being away from our neighborhoods and communities.
But as for the access to the drugs and their vailability, they are just going to get those regardless of where they are and again, destroy our neighborhoods and communities in the process.
This leads us to the scenario I’ve mentioned many times before, what has been referred to as the “Mad Max death camp” and the availability of drugs to these individuals within that encampment.
Look at it as hospice care for the terminally ill because the fact to the matter is these addicted “houseless neighbors” are in fact TERMINAL.
We stick cancer stricken terminally ill people in hospice care so they can live out their lives in comfort and such. What is so different with the “houseless neighbors” and their condition?
Just like they are repeat offenders of criminal activity, they will be repeat users of drugs harmful to them, so give them a safe place to do so, away from our neighborhoods and communities so that they can’t unleash their harm on those.
Of course, the haters are going to say that the rights of the “houseless neighbors” are being violated by placing them in such encampments where drugs would be readily available to them.
What about the rights of people living in the neighborhoods and communities the “houseless neighbors” harass, threaten and terrorize?
But back to the encampment idea. I guarantee you that if given the choice to “sign their rights away” to a “houseless neighbor” to live in an encampment where drugs are provided, they would sign said waiver w/ their own blood.
They want the drugs, they crave the drugs and they are NOT going to accept rehabilitation from their recreation, which is… DRUGS!
I see no problem with this. After all, people sign the dotted line to join the armed forces on a daily basis and when they do, they become government property. They have in effect signed their life away.
We have 18 years olds doing that, what’s the problem with a grown up individual that can’t seem to get their act together doing the same for the opportunity to live in a place where their needs will be provided for?
I’m not comparing the armed forces to being a drug addicted “houseless neighbor” in any way, I’m just using the contractual obligations of signing a dotted line, that’s all.
As for the encampment, add the stipulation that, should anyone want to pursue rehabilitation and recovery, they can get it by available counselors and programs, but honestly, given the opportunity to recover, the vast majority of “houseless neighbors” will turn it down. It’s just the way it is.
Accept the fact that these individuals are terminal and they will NOT change their ways any time soon. As sad as that sounds, it is reality and reality in most cases isn’t nice, polite or pleasant.
We all make decisions and when those are made we need to be held accountable for those decisions.
The decision to put drugs on the top of the priority list, decide to lose your livelihood and shelter and commit crimes to support that decision, that is what the problem is.
After that, the decision what to do with these individuals comes down to the letter of the law and as it currently stands, in the name of compassion we see not much progress made.
Give these people a place to live out their lives the way they want to live it out, addicted, but provided for. It’s the most lebertariaan solution to the matter, it even verges on the favorite policy of the enablers which is socialism. It is simply win-win for all.
I have to add one more thing and that is PLEASE stop using the term “accidental overdose” when a person OD’s from these drugs. There is NOTHING accidental about it.
They choose to do these drugs, all the time knowing what the possibility of ODing is, so there is NOTHING accidental about it.
It’s like saying if a person goes to a casino and loses money that it was an “accidental loss” which would be ridiculous on many levels.
The enablers claim that “addiction is a disease” and with that convention, isn’t gambling an addicition? Then it should also be in the disease category of thought.
BUT… why do we consider an OD “accidental” and losing money at gambling a “bad life choice” which is far from an accident.
Drugs and gambling are BOTH bad choices and again, “accidental OD” is a ridiculous term. Please stop using that term, it sounds silly.