Someone tell me if I'm reading this wrong, but the plan is essentially "we get the police to make them stop, but only arrest the bad guys!"

Why didn't anyone else think of that?

It doesn’t say that. It’s talking about police walking the beat and being part of the community and NOT arresting drug dealers.

Very vague though… what kind of city services will the drug dealers tap into to make them leave behind their drug dealing ways?

She is under the impression dealers will be punished by Krasner.

"Community policing" is one of those terms that is never defined lucidly.

This is too Forrest Gump-y for me to be impressed. If she's the smartest person in the room, this is gonna be a shitshow.

Politicians are big on making sweeping generalizations that they think prospective voters want to hear but are exceptionally light on the granular detail of how it will work in practice. Nothing new here

Kensington isn’t a north Philly neighborhood

It is pretty vague, but it’s a write up of a short speech. Nobody actually goes into much detail at these things - even less is pretty common.

I’m assuming there’s a more detailed document somewhere? Especially regarding how and where this has worked in other cities?

Not really enough to go on here, one way or another, beyond noting that she’s making it part of her agenda in a way I don’t see to the same degree elsewhere (I don’t think any of the other candidates have done an onsite thing?), but I’d be interested in seeing the more thorough version.

Yeah it’s all pretty vague

My biggest problem with RR is that she condescends. She talks to people like they're straight up idiots.

Sometimes I think most of this city is straight up idiots

Yah we are but we don’t like to be called idiots. That’s how Hillary lost

It is but if you SAY that the idiots might hear you and there’s more of us than there are of you

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The sooner we realize that most of us are idiots, the better. People need to be talked down to in order to understand policy, since we've been convinced that so much that doesn't work (privatized "insert public service") doesn't work long term.

At what point do we decriminalize heroin and regulate / tax it? I’d imagine it’s cheaper to keep addicts safe and doped up than is to support the war on drugs and all the crime that comes from the drug trade / property theft. It doesn’t say people can’t take drugs anywhere in the Bible, right?

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this isn’t going to work because it still relies on police using their own judgment to decide who’s a bad guy. and cops hate addicts and homeless lol

Does it seem like a lot of people sound like that to you?

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Its vague because it has to be. There is no other document of substance some here are alluding to. Meaning, there is no substantial plan. It’s the same word salad other have said. She along with Domb, Gym, and basically all of them really have no idea about the dynamics of kensington and elsewhere. That was probably her first time in the neighborhood. All she knows is where the money goes.

‘More police’ in this day and age? Same old BS.

Maybe not as much as cops hate working and doing stuff, though.

could the arrest the dealers too tho

Good luck. This is not going to work. The city allowed the drug trade to thrive for years, somebody is getting rich off of it. They aren’t going to give that up that easily. I also have no sympathy for dealers and that turns me off this candidate.

I’m not sure why that post said that. The article very clearly says that arrests would be involved when it comes to dealing.

Where it would be left to discretion re: arrest v. diversion to community services teams is for undefined “low-level” crimes (which presumably does not involve dealing, and is more about users).

Regardless of whether that would work, that isn’t within the power of the Mayor.

For example of recycled word salad, highlighting this is an issue that isn’t going to be “fixed” by RR immediately

Philadelphia Opioid Response 2021 Action Plan

https://www.phila.gov/media/20210421131023/ORUStrategicReport42021.pdf

Way back to 2018:

https://www.phillytrib.com/news/kenneys-new-plan-for-opioid-epidemic/article_bdc7e454-d5de-5ebf-a9b8-1df37c78f5ef.html

Politicking 101 - Tell the people what they want to hear, even if it's nothing new, tell them what they want to hear anyway.

To me, I have seen up close what happens to addicts and their families and with that suffering in mind, I don't think we should ever legalize or decriminalize heroin.

It doesn't matter if it's cheaper, to me it seems like the right thing to do, to aggressively intervene in these people's lives.

Good thing the Bible ain't law

In fairness she spends most of her time working with Philadelphia public officials so it’s a learned habit

Partially joking

Weak ass vague "plan".

Any plan that does not acknowledge that addicts living on the street are a danger to themselves and their surroundings is a failure.

The only way forward is court ordered treatment and shelter.

At least she acknowledged the trauma and pain of the actual residents of Kensington and their children.

MANDATORY TREATMENT AND SHELTER FOR ZOMBIES

That happens in 2046 don't ask me how I know

The article is ambiguous. Hard to tell if that’s due to RR, or the reporter, but it mentions arrests with ultimatums. It sounded to me like the idea is you arrest them, and tell them they have the option to do job training and find other lines of work, and if that fails, then it’s jail. That’s how I took it.

It sounds kind of like how, on the demand side of the drug market, in places like Portugal, people caught using heroin are given a summons where the authorities say, “go to rehab or we’ll fine you, take away your govt benefits, etc.”

Same general premise / goal. You’re trying to tell people they can’t continue as they are, but they can choose between entering social programs to help them, or getting punished (usually a criminal penalty like jail for dealers, and a civil (aka non-criminal) penalty for people who use, like fines, or loss of benefits.)

Of course, that requires that the social service programs be good, and it requires the city to follow through with the enforcement of the punishment option for those that don’t take service.

Politically, that’s hard because so many people in the US don’t believe there should ever be a punishment / enforcement angle. They think the govt should ask people to voluntarily participate in a social aid program, and if they say don’t, just let them continue buying/selling/using in hopes that eventually change their mind.

And cynically, there’s kind of an incentive for services to suck. Politicians like to spend on services as it looks like action, and the orgs that run them like getting money. And, in some sense, being good at addressing the issues means less future money. Problems call for money, fixing problems means less need for money. From the perspective of continual funding, the “ideal” outcome to appear to be effective, but to be a revolving door where people seeking help cycle in and out, and the money keeps flowing. That’s best achieved by running something like a 6 week rehab program with no follow-up services. Easy to parade around people at week six who look to be on a good path, but without after-care, it’s often just a matter of time before they return and do it all over again.

>It doesn't matter if it's cheaper, to me it seems like the right thing to do, to aggressively intervene in these people's lives.

I agree. To be candid, I have no medical background but I have read some books on the opioid crisis and have personally lost three people over the last 10 years to overdoses.

When you're an addict, all that matters is the next high. IMO it can be reasonably assumed that you are not in control of your mental faculties and therefore are subject forced intervention to protect you from yourself. We would do the same for people who are obviously having mental episodes.

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A stern talking to and a business card isn't going to stop a dealer from peddling killer drugs.

The point of decriminalization/legalization is so instead of interacting with dealers, who have an incentive to keep them addicted, the users interact with health professionals who can intervene

That’s the idea in theory, anyway

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Ultimately intervention almost always has to be someone saying, you aren't getting high for 30 days and we are going to make sure you don't drop dead from withdrawal at an inpatient facility, against your will.

I would really like to have the title of Drug Czar

The cheaper part is a ploy to the phony fiscal responsibility crowd. They won’t help people just to help people. After all, they believe it’s gods will that people have misfortune or that their sin caused them to become addicted

Yet

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With the number of people dying from opiods, we will never decriminalize them.

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We SHOULD do the same for people who are obviously having mental episodes, but we don’t. That’s what makes this all so difficult. There is a HUGE overlap between addiction and mental health, however we (as a country) are so incredibly inept at mental health policy. I truly believe that fixing mental health policies will fix addiction issues, but it’s just not been a priority. It’s infuriating.

Any congressman or senator that tries to make this policy a thing would get eviscerated by the public and media. It's a career suicide that no one would do.

So basically that thing the city does every so often. One time they called it Operation Sunshine or something. Here's the thing. Dealers are not the problem. They are supply responding to demand and there will always be someone willing to do that. You need to address demand. The users are the problem. Massively expand access to medication-assisted recovery and homeless shelters. Start enforcing laws around possession, vagrancy, panhandling etc and divert them to secure rehab facilities.

We won't do it though because you'll have the civil liberties people insisting people have a right to shoot up in the streets and shit on the sidewalks and people on the right saying junkies don't deserve housing.

We don't have to go that far. Making Suboxone more available would be enough.

Drug War? Drugs won the last one.

It's called harm reduction.Safe, legal heroin would reduce the overdoses and violence. I mean back when the pill mills were in business people with opioid addictions got their pills and went to work. It wasn't ideal but when you took that away they ended up on the streets.

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> It consists of locating street level dealers and arresting those that are violent and non-violent dealers, giving them a warning and an ultimatum that starting at that very moment, continuing to deal drugs is not an option and the program will help them get out of that life with job training and opportunities. 

> The intervention program is one of two law enforcement strategies Rhynhart laid out that have worked in other cities. The second program, LEAD, similar to the drug market program, has city services at the core of its mission. 

> LEAD, law enforcement assisted diversion, allows law enforcement to redirect individuals suspected of low-level crimes to community-based services that pick out hidden factors motivating their illegal activities. 

That seems fairly specific for someone currently in that office. And I do prefer "something that worked elsewhere" instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

Another major thing we're missing is an FDA approved xylazine withdrawal treatment plan. A lot of addicts are dealing with two addictions, not one, and there's currently nothing for xylazine withdrawal since it's a veterinary drug. That makes them extremely resistant to rehab.

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I don't understand why no candidate has the balls to just propose arresting, prosecuting, and jailing people shooting up on the street.

At this point I don't really give a fuck that it's a "disease" anymore. Yeah in a perfect world there'd be help, and I'd be happy to literally double my state income tax rate if it meant funding programs that actually got these people into (involuntary) treatment but honestly, I'm tired of giving a fuck about these people. Tired of not being able to use the El because homeless drug addicts are shooting up on the train at all hours of the day, tired of not being able to walk my dog without having to look out for loose needles. Tired of wondering if I should tell my in-laws to just drive in and spend 30 minutes looking for street parking rather than take the regional rail because it seems like every other week some crazy homeless person stabbed another one to death in a station.

Why the fuck should I care about all these drugged out junkies? I'd rather we put them in treatment, but honestly I just want them off the streets so jail will do just fine. The entire rest of our city shouldn't have to suffer because of these people.

Yeah I am with you in they need to be more stern on focusing to get Septa cleaner/safer. My parents live out in downingtown (where I grew up) and they are less and less comfortable driving in the roads now, especially on 76. They both are seniors and have the septa passes, but are afraid to take the train to Jefferson and transfer to the EL.

I feel the city just sees the development ramping up along American, Front and Frankford and they will just let the developers figure it out for them.

Kensington has been Kensington as long back as I can remember in Philly, when I moved there in the 80s. Yes it’s gotten horrifically worse. But It was awful as long ago as say 2000. And you hit the nail on the head, neither side is willing to concede to do what must be done, and therefore never will be done.

That and it will take an army deployment to clean this up now, and noooooobldy wants to go There.

Maybe then we can finally stop featuring Kensington on yt videos

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I totally understand the concept and where the idea of harm reduction is coming from. I respect the idea of harm reduction and I think it comes from a good place.

To me, I think about a person I was close with being hooked on drugs, crack, throwing their life away, destroying their body, destroying all their relationships and many close calls with death. I think about how I felt and his family felt when he was arrested, relieved. I remember when he was jailed, we were hopeful. In that moment of sobriety, he opted for inpatient rehab. That's the kind of intervention I think we need. I

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There’s not enough treatment facilities to do this. Not to mention the horrendous state of addiction treatment in the us.

I can’t find the article right now. But there’s a woman who lives in fairhill who volunteered for over a decade with the homeless there. They got a very high number of people to agree to treatment. However because of 1 lack of beds 2 the way the system is completely fucked up it didn’t work out the way it intended to

An army deployment won’t work. Those of us who work with the community or have been a part of the community know what works (evidence based treatment) but nobody wants to actually do that because of stigma. Easier to just pretend the police and courts can make this right when we don’t even have enough treatment beds for those who want treatment.

Because 1. We don’t have the room in jails 2. We don’t have the low crime required to divert police to do such a thing 3. It doesn’t work. It’s not actually going to fix the problem.

There are things that will fix the problem to the best degree we can but neither the public or the politicians want that because of stigma.

Septa really should be taking it more seriously though. Keeping trains and buses drug free is something doable. You can find places in the city to do your thing away from people before just shooting on the train.

While this is needed the political will is simply not there. Harm reductionists are working towards change that 1. Works 2. Doesn’t require all the legal changes such a program would require but it’s still a fight when the stigma is as bad as it is

That very rarely works and we don’t have the treatment beds for it.

Also the treatment system for addiction is in shambles

Jail is not treatment. While we absolutely should be incorporating treatment into jail for those who have to go it’s not a system meant to treat addicts.

Make no mistake majority of people don’t end up like your friend. Majority end up either dead or worse off then they were.

Jail is not treatment. Also we don’t have the room in jails to do that anyways. So we should let dangerous criminals out instead of fixing the system actually meant for SUD?

My friend was jailed briefly before taking a plea deal which had him in a 30 day inpatient rehab in lieu of a prison sentence. The time he spent in jail was because he couldn't post bail. In today's climate, he wouldn't have been arrested, or jailed or kept in custody awaiting a trial.

I don't think prison is an answer, although there are certainly addicts who should be in prison for the actions they take to support their addiction. There should be an infrastructure in place, in prisons, to treat addicts for are incarcerated.

I strongly believe that most addicts, should be arrested, charged and forced into 30 day rehab in lieu of a prison sentence. If we don't have the beds for that, we should make the beds for that. We should spend whatever money is necessary to force people through detox and into treatment at every opportunity. As a society we should put our foot down and say, no, you will not get high on heroin with impunity.

No but there could be if we funded it. And if treatment centers weren't run by crooks and adherents to scientifically invalid 12-step dogma that would help too.

Operation Sunshine et al helped though. They improved the situation but they were unsustainable long term.