San Francisco is a pretty screwy place. You can’t buy cigarettes in drug stores, you can’t buy Menthol cigarettes anywhere (something about targeting black people), plastic straws are illegal and so are plastic bags. It’s not uncommon to see a naked dude walking down the street and people who ride public transportation are seen to be of a higher intelligence that those who drive. It’s beautiful and filthy, accepting and intolerant, and sweet and sour.
The city does a lot of things wrong. One thing it’s doing right is how addiction is viewed and how drug addicts are treated. On more than one occasion, I’ve been in a situation where I was searched and where the police found a pipe with shit in it or a little baggie. In all cases (except for one, and that was because the officers were not from San Francisco) said paraphernalia was returned to me and I was told to go on about my merry way. No judgemental comments, no tickets, no warnings, nothing. Why? Because the San Francisco Police have been trained that drug addiction is something to help, not lock up. Can you imagine being stopped by the police and when they noticed you had a sniffle being handcuffed? Having a drug addiction is no more of a crime than having a cold.
Now if I would have been dealing those drugs, then yes – my ass should have been arrested. But don’t spend your time telling us run of the mill average everyday addicts that it’s a disease when we’re trying to get clean and arresting us when we’re not. And if my addiction isn’t causing me or anyone else harm, just leave me the fuck alone.
How many jobs have you been fired from in your lifetime? Me: Zero. How much money do you make / year? Oh $60,000 – are you just successful? This meth addict is pushing $200,000 / year and that is 100% legal activity that money’s coming from – a job with benefits paid for by my employer in their entirety. Now the next time you get drunk and run over your neighbor’s garbage can sit back and tell me my life is unmanageable. Or when you walk down to get your disability check because you’re so fat you can’t work or just too plain lazy to get a job don’t forget to stop to call and tell me that I’m a fucking burden on society.
Better yet, next time you get the fucking flu just go right to the police station and turn yourself in – we don’t want your kind roaming the streets.