good morning. and welcome to the country club. and i really want to first of all thank billy and the country club and the whole team for hosting us here today. for those who don't know, the country club is it one of the core community pillars in the castro for many people seeking recovery can have support. and the castro. so thank you castro country club for all you do.

i'm scott weaner. and i have the opportunity of representing the california state senate. we're here to talk about what we're doing at the state and local level to address it and i'm honored to be join by our mayor, mayor breed and supervisor mandelman, by our director of public health and my amazing community leaders who you'll hear from today. so we have been working all year on providing more state support for san francisco's work addressing our meth crisis which is a significant crisis in the city. we know in 2019, a majority of overdose deaths were meth related. that most admissions to our psych emergency room are meth related. we also know we have big

problems with fentanyl and heroin. meth is a huge contributor to those overdose deaths in san francisco. we also know that meth leads to significant behavioral health challenges on our streets with people creating unsafe conditions for themselves and for other people and we need to get people to get healthy and to recovery. so right now, i authored senate bill 110 which is sitting on governor newsome's desk, which will explicitly legalize something called contingency management which is perhaps or one of the most effective tools for helping people addicted to meth. for people to get sober and stay sober. we know that meth does not have a pharmaceutical treatment to

help people get into recovery, like, for example, opioids, there's medication that you can take. that doesn't exit for meth yet. we hope it will one day. and contingency management is a proven tool that the san francisco aids foundation have been using for a decade. that the veteran and that has proven results in helping people use less or stop using entirely and to get into recovery and stay there and be healthy. so we're calling on the governor to sign sb110 to allow san francisco and other cities in california to take this approach which the biden administration has embraced. so this is something that we really need to move forward here in california and in san francisco. in addition this year in the state budget, i was able to obtain $4.2 million so san

francisco can open up an additional meth sobering center. san francisco is moving forward with these sobering centers so that people who are using meth have a place to go to come down, to be in a safe space, to get connected to resources and we hope eventually to go into recovery. so i want to thank our senate leadership and everyone and our budget committee who allowed us to obtain this funding for meth sobering center in san francisco. we know that people of san francisco are incredibly frustrated with the situation with overdoses and people dying. we had a record number of overdose deaths last year. it's heart breaking for this incredibly compassionate city. it is a public health crisis. it is not a criminal problem. this is not about arresting people and cycling people through the system. this is -- this needs to move away from the overwhelming of

our emergency rooms when we have other tools that can help people without flooding our emergency rooms. and that's what these strategies are about. so, again, thank you. and now i'd like to bring up mayor breed who has been and is a true leader on these issues with a lot of different innovative approaches here in san francisco. mayor breed. >> thank you. first of all, i want to just say thank you to senator weaner for his leadership in sacramento on all things that are important to address in san francisco and in particular addiction we know is a very challenging thing. he has been leading the fight on safe consumption sites. he has been leading the fight on resources to address the challenges that we face with getting this meth sobering center open and i really want to thank and appreciate his

work, his ability to deliver $4.2 million to help support this facility is going to be absolutely incredible and we will be opening that center in the soma neighborhood in november. we have to think about diverse number of solutions and it's not one size fits all. i have had as some of you may know family members who struggle with addiction and the last thing that you want to see is someone who you love who is strung out on drugs, out on the streets, or worse, someone that you love die from a drug overdose. we can't just make it disappear because we don't want to see it. these are people. these are people with families. these are people who folks love and care about who have challenges just like many of us have challenges in life and so this is really important to me

and very personal because, you know, what we see happening on our streets because of the challenges with addiction is something that we can help to do something about and part of what we want to do is we want to save lives. over 95,000 people in this country died as a result of drug overdoses this past year and we want to make sure because we saw record breaking numbers of overdose deaths in san francisco and we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to prevent that. that's why we're here today. we know that we have to think about a diverse number of solutions and how sb110 is really i think a very innovative way, again, one that senator weaner already talked about as being implemented by the aids foundation here in san francisco and others because we

have to make sure that we provide as many resources as many incentives as possible to get people on the right path. and not to mention here in san francisco as we all know, we see, you know, a lot of the addiction play itself out on our streets and so many people see and then they think, we don't want this happening on our streets. well, we don't want it happening on our streets. we have to make sure we have places like the castro country club. we have to make sure that we continue to support health right 360 and their incredible work. we have to make sure that people have alternatives. this, you know, crisis of addiction with fentanyl, with, you know, meth, with heroin, and all of these other drugs that, you know, are getting into the hands of folks all over the streets, it's a struggle. it's a challenge and it's one that we're prepared to meet, but we have to make sure that

we have the places, the resources, the capacity so that when someone says "i need help, we're able to be there." when they're at this meth sobering center, they're not just sitting there by themselves. they'll be people there to provide alternatives and to try and help them get back on their feet. we want to make sure that every solution possible exists in the city and county of san francisco so that as soon as someone puts their hands up and says i need help, we are right there, we're ready to get them into any treatment that makes the most sense and that's going to lead to success for them and their life. so i want to thank you all so much for being here again. thank you so much, senator weaner for your leadership and work on all of these matters. it is great to have a partner who understands and values the need to do this work and he has

truly been an amazing leader and an inspiration. so thank you so much, senator weaner. >> thank you, mayor breed. we'll now hear from our san francisco director of public health grant colfax followed by my successor on the board of supervisors, supervisor rafael mandelman. >> good morning everybody. it's impressive to have the leadership of so many here. your work to address our city's overdose crisis and meth crisis is saving lives and, again, placing san francisco at the forefront of compassionate and effective care. thank you for hosting us today and your stewardship of the castro country club. for decades, this has been a place for where people can come

on their journey in recovery. so key to the community. and thank you for the leadership at hr360, a tremendous partner as we address ongoing issues in the city and for your focus on helping us develop the drug sobering center coming this winter. and, finally, thank you tammy martin for your advocacy in sacramento on these key issues that are so important to the lgbtq+ community. as we all know too well, san francisco has seen an alarming number of overdose deaths. and these overdose deaths are truly preventable. and today marks a big step forward in supporting our community who struggle with substance abuse. to get there, we are expandaing what we know to be an effective care treatment and creating a safe space like soma rise. this is about innovative

practices, low barrier to access and meeting people where they are so that every door is truly the right door for people to begin their journey on recovery. in 2019, i had the honor of cosponsoring. we came together with community based organizations, and people with experience using methamphetamine to develop a plan. that seems awhile ago, but i'm so proud that our top recommendations from the meth task force are taking shape and being implemented. and as senator weaner shareded, many of the addiction treatments are unfortunately not effective for stimulant addiction. a treatment for stimulants that we know work is truly contingency management and that's what we've been supporting in the health department for many years. advocates have been waiting for someone like senator weaner to make it possible to expanded

funding source, contingency management and therefore serve so many clients. we all want to do the right thing, we all want to implement effective treatments, but i can tell you making it reality with ab110 would really allow us to scale up this intervention. we also know that not everybody is ready for treatment. meeting people where they are, building those relationships and serving their immediate needs is key. some will rise. it will bring people indoors where they can have a safe, welcoming place to come down, rest, and be connected to services. tragically and unfortunately, fentanyl has changed the landscape of drug overdoses throughout the country and here in san francisco. contingency management provides our key parts of our approaches, but are pieces of a much larger response. san francisco is investing millions of dollars through mental health sf.

we are filling gaps and coordinating services. i want to remind our communities for ways we can support friends, family, neighbors who use drugs and/or stay safe ourselves. san franciscans are saving thousands of lives a year with naloxone, a medicine that reverses the effects of overdose. along with our community partners, we've distributed over 28,000 overdose kits annually. test strips are free at our pharmacy at 1380 howard street and at community sites across the city. we simply cannot give out too many given the pandemic, the pandemic of overdosed in our city. second, the san francisco department of public health in partnership with the fire department has launched two teams to respond to people in crisis or those suffering from an overdose. the street crisis response team and the street overdose response team. if you see someone in crisis or

suspect someone needs support, please call 911 and someone will be there to help them. and now it's my pleasure to introduce a champion of our efforts in our community, supervisor mandelman. thank you. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, dr. colfax. and i will echo all of the praise and gratitude that has been should you ared on billy lemon and the castro club because you are doing life-saving work every day and it's an honor to represent you. this is a great day and this is great legislation senator weaner. when we had that meth task force a few years ago, it was not an uplifting or happy experience to have that conversation because we do have -- we did have a meth crisis, we do have a meth crisis, we've had a meth crisis for some time and the reality is that meth is

a really hard drug to figure out good intervention for. and as has been said, the medical interventions seem to not be particularly effective. but when we heard the presentation on management at the aids foundation, really, i thought it was a cause for hope and something to feel like man oh, man, we really need to be doing more of this. and so recommendation number six i believe in the meth task force report. thank you for letting us convene, mayor, and dr. colfax and i following that up was to build out and fix out the medi-cal funding contingency management. and here we are two years later but we need a signature, governor. we need a signature, but we can dramatically expand those efforts throughout california. it has been personally gratifying for me to see some of the other top reports of

those get closer to fruition. the sobering centers were the first, the number one recommendation, a safe place for people who are in crisis or on the verge of crisis in the streets, shouldn't be on the sidewalk. need to be in a safe place and ideally get connected to services and we're on the cusp and i think we're going to need more than one, but one is a start. and the second recommendation of that task force report was better outreach to those on the street. and the mayor has made that a priority. we are exploring many different ways of getting to folks on the streets, not having the police be that first point of contact, but rather folks who can work with people ideally before an overdose, but after an overdose to keep people connected and get folks into treatment. so the crisis continues. you can see it every day out on the streets. it's not just on house folks either. one of the things we learned,

the prototypical of a meth overdose was a gay, white man in his late 40s. that's a little close to home. but this has been a challenge in the queer community, but it's a challenge for lots of communities and so we need to move faster, more, do more, not rest until we actually -- until we get more of a solution than we got. so i know we're going to do it. i know the mayor's super committed. thanks everybody for your efforts and now we've got to do a whole lot more. oh, and after saying nice things about billy levin, i get to bring billy levin up. i love billy. >> thank you, supervisor. good morning everyone. my name is billy lemon. i am the executive director of the castro country club, a position i've had for about six years and before that i was

addicted to methamphetamine. i got sober in 2013 through the help of -- [ applause ] -- through the help of a myriad of city services that are offered and now supported by many of the folks standing behind me and most primarily mayor breed. we appreciate everything you do. a little -- what i want to say and what i feel is most important is, you don't get a crowd like this in a space like this, in a small neighborhood community center unless there is a very pressing issue. senator weaner has been a long champion of the castro country club. he helped me get out a work force development program funded in 2014 because here's the deal, i got sober with the help of prop at the san francisco aids foundation. at the time, i was homeless.

i had a backpack and i walked into the offices of rick andrews, hi, rick. at that time, rick was the director of prop, i invited him this morning. and prop worked for me. prop is positive reinforcement opportunity project. and, basically, it allows somebody to get a positive test -- a negative test for methamphetamine over a period of time and those little incremental rewards for somebody who was a stimulant user is an effective treatment. and that combined with a whole host of other things. abstinence, maybe not abstinence and eventually folks find their way. and they find their way because san francisco is a

compassionate city that cares about folks moving forward. everybody up here cares about folks moving forward. and what i hope is over time that through the fantastic board of hr360. places like the castro country club, we can meet folks where they are and provide a myriad of options to kind of get their substance use to it a position where they feel comfortable. that's what i do every day and i am a living, breathing example that if you offer a helping hand, that eventually folks will figure out a way to make it work for them and so i really want to thank everybody up here. dr. colfax, vicka, senator weaner and the mayor for funding our work force development program. thank you. we very much appreciate it. we know that you have a lot on your plate and it really is

appreciative. i'm very heart warmed to have you on the premises in a sacred place. so thank you everyone. >> our final two speakers will be vick eisen. >> thank you everybody. can you all hear me? i'm short. thanks for having us here. you know, i am grateful to live in a city and a county that follows and believes in science and follows the research and that is no small thing in this era of covid. and it's also demonstrated by how this city and how our state has responded to drug use, drug overdose and to problematic drug use. we follow the research and we

follow the evidence and the science even when it kind of defies our beliefs, closely held belief systems. in it defies with someone we might of read on the internet. contingency management under sb110 from senator weaner follows the science. it follows research on effective interventions for people who use methamphetamine. now, you have to realize sb360 has been around for a long time. it was a partner and a research project on contingency management back in the late 90s. now i'm an old treatment person. so the idea to me of paying people to not use drugs seems strange, but i said, hey, it's research. let's go with it. and so what did we find? it was effective. we said follow the research. we need to invest in things

that work even if they seem unusual to us or unexpected or it's not the path we thought things would take. so i'm grateful to live in a place where we have a mayor, senators, and board of supervisors who are willing to do that. the summer rise project which we are grateful to be apart of is also evidence of following research on low barrier, low threshold intervention for people in drug crisis. what we want to be able to do is to meet them where they are and connect them to care. that works. that research that shows that that works is also personal experience that shows that that works. you heard billy's story. i'm a former drug user. way back in the day, i went to

ashbury's detox clinic. i must have gone nine times. i felt welcomed nine times. eventually, because they cared about me and i trusted them, i went to treatment and so we look at soma rise. people think they should be in jail. people are filled that we will greet them with love and compassion and food and a shower and a warm place to be and we'll do it all over again until the point they say we want to do something else and when that second comes, we will be there to connect them to care. we'll connect them to health right 360. we'll connect them to service along the path to health.

we will be there to do that. we are facing an unprecedented crisis in overdose deaths. these are just steps to take, but we are proud to be apart of a movement towards really doing anything it takes to taking care of people who use drugs and improving the life of people in san francisco. thank you. [ applause ] >> good morning everybody. tommy martin, legislative director of equality california and every day i go to work to push back against discrimination, against stigma, and against shame. those are just a few of the barriers that prevent people from accessing treatment that they need to overcome addiction. i'm honored to be here today to represent the over-900,000 members of equality california which is the nation's largest

statewide lgbtq+ civil rights organization. and, together, we all joined senator weaner in urging governor newsome to sign sb110 and to combat meth use which is a long standing crisis in the lgbtq+ community. and advocating for this bill over the past 10 months now, imet with a surprising number of people who were not aware of this crisis in the lgbtq+ community and that lack of awareness is another barrier to treatment and another reason stimulant use has grown so rapidly. and meth is often presented as a party drug in the lgbtq+ community, but as we know all too often, it comes for roughly 60% of overdose deaths in san francisco in 2019 and in the mortality rate is high among african american men.

so sb 110 is not just a public health priority. it's not a priority just for the lgbtq+ community, it's also a racial justice priority. we heard this year senator weaner secured a significant state budget which will provide trauma space. and governor newsome has shown a strong commitment by improving that budget investment and that's why we look forward to his signature on sb110 which will provide another critical tool in reducing meth addiction and saving the lives of lgbtq+ californians. thank you. >> thank you, tommy. so now i want to thank everyone for being here. we're happy to answer any questions that members of the press may have. >> reporter: mayor breed, there's currently a resolution at the board of supervisors committee urging you to call

for a local emergency on overdoses and then immediately implement overdose prevention sites is that something you're supportive of? calling for a local emergency on that? >> what i plan to do is exactly what i've been doing and that is making sure that we're focused on action and investments. you know, this pandemic, when we were hit with this pandemic, we use the powers of a declaration of emergency for the purposes of addressing this issue and we know that there are challenges with drug overdoses that are, of course, problematic and this is definitely a public health crisis and the solution is not necessarily a declaration of emergency. the solution is putting resources and putting forth

action toward addressing this issue. and so we are doing what we can to invest significant resources in combatting the crisis and to also be clear ever since i was on the board of supervisors, i have been trying to push to open a safe consumption site and we have been experiencing a number of challenges. senator weaner has been pushing for the state legislation that would allow for us to open those sites and avoid people losing their licenses and other challenges that may come their way. so this is not a issue that san francisco's going to be able to combat alone. this is an issue that we're going to have to continue to work with our state representatives to try and get the job done. and i think, you know, with the investments and the advocacy that we have here today, every

single day, we're going to continue to push in that direction. >> reporter: if this resolution made it to your desk, you would not support it? >> i cannot confirm that at this point because i have not had a chance to review the resolution. >> i do want to reiterate that sb57, our state legislation to legalize safe consumption sites is moving forward and it will move forward in january. governor brown vetoed it in 2018 but we're going to put it on governor newsome's desk next year. >> reporter: mayor breed, director colfax recommended that if we're in a crisis to call 911. are police still responding to meet calls that involve nonviolent situations involving the unhoused. don't you have different advocates to get crisis response to the streets?

>> no there shouldn't be. what has been said today is that almost every single day, san francisco police officers are providing narcan to those experiencing overdoses and they are also saving lives. but what happens when you call 911, the dispatcher analyzes the call to determine who should come out. so, for example, we had the overdose response team, but if they're not available, we need to send someone sooner rather than later. we can't wait and this is a new vehicle. a number of the things that we're putting in place in terms of the street crisis response team, the overdose response team, the wellness checks, we have just put those things into place. and they're working very effectively when they are able to respond, but they're also very time consuming. so it's not like you can just show up to a scene and say get in an ambulance and say let's go. sometimes it can take an hour or two hours for one individual

to get support because it requires patience and it requires an understanding of what that person is actually going through. so if none of those groups of people are available to respond in those teams, and someone is calling 911 and it's a crisis, we're going to send what we need to send in order to try to help deal with this situation. and it should be noted again that there are offices out there with narcan that are helping people too. and i get it. there are some folk who is have a problem with it, but at the end of the day, it's going to take all of us to work together to help address this crisis. and i apologize, but i do have another thing to go to. >> thank you. >> final questions. >> reporter: quick question for dr. colfax on another note. where do we currently stand on the indoor mask mandate? is that something you're discussing?

repealing at this point? >> we're in discussions with our health officer and other science health experts looking at our numbers and figuring out where there may be sub substantiatebility. and we're on a downward path and we're going to be continuing to figure out the best time to potentially roll back some of the indoor masking mandates, but right now, we're not prepared to do that. >> do you have a timeline? >> i don't have a specific time line. >> can you expand a little bit more on san francisco in terms of that positive path that you're referring to? >> well, our cases have been dropping. we're almost at half the statewide average, but right now we're about 11 per 100,000 cases. our test positivty rate is below 2% and that's the first time it's been below 2% for a number of months. we have about 65 people in the hospital on average on any given day. i think the most important

metric is our vaccination rate. so we're at 82% of people eligible to be vaccinated and in relationship to how we all get back to an ongoing, safer environment, the new normal, we're really excited about the 5-11-year-olds being eligible for the vaccine at the end of october. that will be a major step forward allowing children to continue that in-person learning. so excited about that. >> what kind of metrics are you looking for? are you looking for certain case rates? >> it's a combination of factors. so it's looking at that and a lieu of those variables that i just talked about. >> do you think it is the vaccination rate that's most contributing to san francisco being at a better vaccination rate. >> i think it is. i mean, we're higher than most jurisdictions and i think you also see the fact that in the hospitalizations among people hospitalized, people without vaccine are eight times more

likely to be hospitalized with covid than people who are fully vaccinated. so these vaccines are saving lives. they've saved lives in san francisco and will continue to do so. so the message is if you haven't gotten vaccinated, please get vaccinated. we have drop-in centers across the city. we have 100 vaccine sites usually within a 5 to 10 minutes walking distance in san francisco. >> great. any final questions? >> perhaps dr. colfax mentioned this, but we heard about the unprecedented crisis on overdose deaths, what is contributing to that? >> it's spiking everywhere. this is throughout the country, throughout california. san francisco is not unique and i think there are -- we were already, you know, we talked about death of despair. people who feel like they have no other options, lack of support and and the pandemic

made things worse because there was less access to services and to health and so, again, this is not just a san francisco problem. it might be more visible here because we're more concentrated denser city, but it's happening absolutely everywhere. in rural areas and in urban areas, suburban areas and that's why this sb110 received a unanimous bipartisan vote of support in the senate and almost unanimous in the assembly. it was not controversial and it was very bipartisan support because every community is suffering. okay. thank you very much everyone. [ applause ]