Last month San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the city would begin to crack down on the open-air drug markets that plague downtown. As I pointed out here, Breed’s planned announcement of the new approach was turned into a circus thanks to Democratic Socialist City Supervisor Dean Preston. Before the meeting was cut off by protesters shouting (and one throwing a brick) Breed said it was time for a change.

“We have tried over and over again,” Breed said at U.N. Plaza. “And what we are doing is not working. And in fact, our local resources have increased. But it has not dealt with the problem based on the magnitude of what we are experiencing. I run into people day in and day out in the Tenderloin, and they say, ‘London, we would have never been allowed to get away with this stuff back in the day.’ And the fact is, it’s time for a change. We want to get people help, but we will not continue to allow things to just occur as they have been.”

The battle between the mayor and the city supervisor continued. Last week, Preston challenged Breed to fund “wellness centers” another place for drug users similar to the linkage center which shut down last December. The linkage center was so named because it was supposed to link drug addicts to city services but after a year and $22 million spent, the experiment had accomplished very little. Staffers were able to reverse 300 overdoses of people who came to do drugs inside the linkage center but only 1% of visitors were referred for drug or mental health treatment. Breed responded to Preston’s demands by essentially calling him a white savior.

WATCH: SF Mayor @LondonBreed exchanged fiery words with Tenderloin Supe @DeanPreston at Tuesday’s @sfbos meeting as she defended the city’s arrests of drug users.

"Here we go, another white man talking about Black and brown people as if you’re the savior," Breed said. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/itqZe4jqJK

— The San Francisco Standard (@sfstandard) June 14, 2023

Over the weekend this story took another interesting turn. As police started arresting people using drugs on the street for the first time in a long time they noticed an unexpected pattern. Nearly all of the people they arrested were from out of town.

Nearly 95% of people arrested for drug use in San Francisco since May 30 are from out of town, Police Chief Bill Scott said at a public hearing this week, corroborating perceptions that many residents already have — that their city has become a magnet for the narcotics trade.

“Only three out of 45 list San Francisco as their address,” Scott said during a Police Commission meeting Wednesday, referring to arrests made by an eight-officer patrol unit in the Tenderloin and South of Market. While Scott said he was not surprised that so many people hailed from other cities, he said it’s a demographic figure his staff is “paying attention to.

The data, which fluctuates constantly, seems to capture a trend that many San Franciscans have long complained about, of people flocking to the Tenderloin to use drugs. Yet, the picture that Scott presented was stark enough to rattle some city officials.

City Supervisor Matt Dorsey published video of the police chief’s statement and called the information stunning. He added, “We should *not* be a destination for public drug use.”

I’d expect many of those who use drugs publicly to be from out of town, but I’m stunned by what @SFPDChief Scott reported here — only 3 of the 45 people arrested so far for public drug use have a San Francisco address.

We should *not* be a destination city for public drug use. pic.twitter.com/FQ42oAETdu

— Matt Dorsey (@mattdorsey) June 16, 2023

The story notes there is concern among those who object to the arrests of drug users (for public intoxication) that these numbers will add to the impetus to crack down on public drug use.

“There’s this theory of ‘drug tourism’ that’s been taking hold lately,” said Sara Shortt, coordinator of the Treatment on Demand Coalition, which has pushed back against city drug crackdowns. Shortt questioned San Francisco’s “immediate” fixation on the out-of-town demographic — one of many that police could have chosen to highlight, she said.

“I think it’s clear they’re trying to produce certain conclusions,” Shortt added.

The activists may not like it but the numbers are what they are. What they show is that people from out of town are coming to downtown San Francisco to buy drugs and use drugs. Why is that happening? Probably because the word has gone out over the past several years that no one is ever arrested for buying or using drugs downtown. In short, because the city’s policies have made it an attractive place for drug tourism.

The activists can’t have it both ways. If on the one hand they want to immediately put an end to these arrests and set up supervised drug consumption centers, then they can’t also pretend to be surprised to learn that people are coming into to town to use those services. If you subsidize “safe” drug consumption, you will get more of it.