Lock up your fish sticks and pizzas, folks; we’ve entered San Francisco!No city epitomizes left-coast lawlessness quite like the Golden City, where mustard is now a luxury good, and the local government allows “safe injection sites.”According to Beat It: Employee Assistance Programs, San Francisco claims the dubious distinction of having more drug addicts than high school students. “There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools,” the 2017 report reads.City Hall has all but given up on eliminating the problem, reduced, instead, to merely “moderating” it. In 2017, for example, the government handed out 5.8 million free syringes, which are “safer” than used needles. Despite spending nearly $2 million to retrieve the needles, however, the government still handed out millions of more syringes than were returned.But as the needles on the streets increase, so does the number of corresponding deaths.“There were 647 accidental drug overdose deaths in San Francisco in 2022, and over 70% of those deaths were attributable to fentanyl,” AP News reported. “In the first five months of 2023, preliminary reports show there were 346 overdose deaths in the city — an increase of more than 40% from the same period in 2022.”These numbers set 2023 on track to become the deadliest year yet in the city’s drug epidemic. SEE ALSO: San Francisco Forming Poop Patrol to Keep Sidewalks Clean of Human Waste Not surprisingly, crime is also on the rise. In fact, as CNN revealed in a recent video, stores such as Walgreens are now forced to lock their freezer sections with “heavy chains” so as to prevent theft. The problem is so pervasive, CNN witnessed three thefts while filming the video.“This is just more icing on the cake,” complained one customer, “telling us that rampant crime has become a regular part of life.”The video shows mustard secured behind plexiglass, flu medicine behind locks, and ice cream, fish sticks, and frozen burritos behind chains. Other stores in the area have latched their frozen foods with cables and coffee in locked safes.In San Francisco, we went to the Walgreens that is the #1 spot for theft in all the 9000 US stores, per Walgreens. This is where chains once shut the freezer section. And we saw 3 thefts right in front of us. But across SF, coffee, mustard, nail polish– are all locked up: pic.twitter.com/IfYBVgpeI2— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) July 25, 2023 SEE ALSO: Grant – A hero for diffident Gen Z men It’s safe to say that lawlessness reigns supreme in the Golden City, a locale that has resigned itself to violent crime, theft, and “safe” drug use. Unfortunately, this problem will assuredly spread throughout the nation if we do not find a way to clamp down on the borderline anarchy. Ultimately, this problem is not within the government’s power to solve (although they certainly could help by renouncing their failed, soft-on-crimes policies). This is a people problem. Until we learn to apply responsible self-governance to the crisis at hand, it will continue to worsen.It’s only a matter of time until we’re all buying our fish sticks and pizzas from chained refrigerators.Jakob Fay is a staff writer for the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.
