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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Edelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the

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Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any

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Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of my Heart Media,

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Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, as an

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Speaker 1: inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not even

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Speaker 1: represent my own and nothing contained in this show should

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Speaker 1: be used as medical advice or encouragement to use any

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Speaker 1: type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Our guest today is

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Speaker 1: Chasa Boudin. Chasa was elected the District Attorney of San

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Speaker 1: Francisco in late twenty nineteen, running out of, you know,

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Speaker 1: basically a progressive prosecutor's agenda, and served there for about

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Speaker 1: two and a half years, and then was the subject

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Speaker 1: of a well financed and well coordinated recall campaign in

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Speaker 1: California it's one of the states where you can recall politicians,

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Speaker 1: doesn't happen in most states, and landed up losing that.

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Speaker 1: So he is now the x d A. So, Chasa,

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate you're getting on with me now and

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Speaker 1: hope this is a good moment when you're not running anything,

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Speaker 1: not in office, to be well be able to talk

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Speaker 1: as freely as possible about all sorts of criminal justice issues. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I'm happy to be with you, Ethan, and I've enjoyed

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Speaker 1: listening to your pod in the past and honored to

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Speaker 1: be a guest on the show. So Chisa, I mean,

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Speaker 1: let me get start off by asking you this. You

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Speaker 1: came with a very strong reformist perspective. You were working

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Speaker 1: in the public Defender's office. Why was it that you

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Speaker 1: decided to throw your hat in the ring and actually

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Speaker 1: run for, you know, the chief prosecutor job in San

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Speaker 1: Francisco when that would be a job that involve putting

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Speaker 1: people behind bars, as I imagine we'll talk about. I

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Speaker 1: grew up visiting my own parents in prison. My dad

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Speaker 1: served forty years before he was ultimately released. My mom

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Speaker 1: did twenty two years, and though I don't remember their arrest,

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Speaker 1: I was too little. My earliest memories are waiting in

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Speaker 1: lines at prison gates to go through metal detectors and

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Speaker 1: to get searched, just to be able to see my parents,

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Speaker 1: just to be able to give them hugs, and so

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Speaker 1: as long as I can remember, I've been impacted by

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Speaker 1: and thinking about this country's response to crime and how

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Speaker 1: we meet out punishment and what rehabilitation means. And I've

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Speaker 1: been acutely aware of the tremendous carnage that the war

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Speaker 1: on drugs has left in its wake. I've been actively

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Speaker 1: witnessing the racial disparities that our criminal legal system amplifies.

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Speaker 1: And when I went to law school, I wanted to

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Speaker 1: try to fight to change that system, the system that

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Speaker 1: had done so little to invest in victims, and it

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Speaker 1: was so disinterested in re entry and rehabilitation and was

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Speaker 1: so focused on punishment in ways that we're not making

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Speaker 1: our communities safer. And at the time I went to

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Speaker 1: law school, UM prosecutors were really part of the problem.

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Speaker 1: They were a driving force in mass incarceration, in what

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Speaker 1: had led the United States to be the country that

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Speaker 1: embarrassingly leads the world in locking people up. And so

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Speaker 1: I became a public defender of after law school. And

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Speaker 1: it was only in that context that UM I saw

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Speaker 1: professionally what I'd experienced personally my whole life. And I

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Speaker 1: looked around the country and was witnessing a national movement

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Speaker 1: that recognized we can build safety through decarceration and that

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Speaker 1: prosecutors are a key part of that movement. And it

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Speaker 1: was in that context that I decided to run for

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Speaker 1: San Francisco District Attorney. I say, you know, yeah, we

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Speaker 1: just mentioned your parents for our listeners. Chases mother was

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Speaker 1: Cathy Budan and his father David Gilbert, and they were

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Speaker 1: part of radical, militant left wing organization of all the

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Speaker 1: weather Underground. And on one day when Chase was just

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Speaker 1: a tie Um landed up being connected with members of

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Speaker 1: the Black Liberation Army driving a getaway car when an

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Speaker 1: operation happened where two police officers and a BRINX guard

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Speaker 1: were killed. And so, as he said, his parents were

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Speaker 1: sentenced and he was then adopted. I mean his legal

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Speaker 1: guardians were two other well known members of the Weatherman Underground,

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Speaker 1: Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dort. So he comes from quite

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Speaker 1: distinguished what might be called radical royalty. In fact, his grandfather,

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Speaker 1: Leonard Buddan, was the civil rights and UH civil liberties

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Speaker 1: activists who represented Daniel Ellsberg in the Depending on Paper's case.

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Speaker 1: So I have to say there are probably a few

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Speaker 1: other names or families that are as linked to the

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Speaker 1: kind of radical left and contemporary American politics as yours. Well,

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Speaker 1: I I didn't live through that whole history, but as

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Speaker 1: you say, um, I have a lot of family members

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Speaker 1: who have been actively involved in politics and in different ways,

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Speaker 1: and student organizing and in litigating. And we could go

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Speaker 1: back even further. My grandfather's uncle, Louis Boudin wrote a

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Speaker 1: number of really important scholarly works and books criticizing the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court's refusal in the nineteen thirties to accept the

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Speaker 1: New Deal and the ways in which the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: was striking down the federal legislative initiative aimed at addressing

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Speaker 1: the Great Depression. So yeah, we we have a lot

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Speaker 1: of lawyers and scholars in the family, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people who have been very critically involved in responding

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Speaker 1: to fascism and imperialism and racism. And I'm certainly proud

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Speaker 1: to have learned from some of the mistakes made along

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Speaker 1: the way, and also to share a commitment to fighting

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Speaker 1: to make the world a better place. Now. Were your

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Speaker 1: parents incarcerated in New York State prisons? Yes, both Kathy

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Speaker 1: and David served the entirety of their prison sentences in

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Speaker 1: New York State correctional facilities, and so As I recall,

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Speaker 1: in the late nineties early nine New York State was

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Speaker 1: either first or second among all the states in the

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Speaker 1: country in terms of the proportion of people incarcerated for

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Speaker 1: drug law violations. In fact, I think at one point

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Speaker 1: in New York it came close to fifty of all

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Speaker 1: new commitments. So I imagine when you went to visit

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Speaker 1: your parents, basically you must have been surrounded by families

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Speaker 1: visiting people who were getting locked up, oftentimes on non violent,

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Speaker 1: low level drug offenses, the notorious Rockefeller drug laws. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I vivid memories of talking to my mother, and you know,

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Speaker 1: of course, I remember many of the women in my

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Speaker 1: mother's prison were there serving time for essentially standing up

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Speaker 1: for themselves in the face of horrific sexual violence and

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Speaker 1: domestic violence. But increasingly over the years it was people

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Speaker 1: who were casualties of the War on drugs. And I

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Speaker 1: remember one woman in particular who was one of my

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Speaker 1: mother's best friends in prison and helped teach my mother

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Speaker 1: Spanish and inspired me to go to Latin America and

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Speaker 1: learned Spanish. And she was there for many, many, many

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Speaker 1: years because of the role she played as a low

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Speaker 1: level mule for a bigger drug cartel. Another woman, the

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Speaker 1: mother of a close friend of mine who I became

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Speaker 1: friends within the prison visiting room, was serving a many

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Speaker 1: decades long sentence under the Rockefeller drug laws. All of

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Speaker 1: these folks had no violence, no history of violence, no weapons,

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Speaker 1: and yet we're filling jails and prisons across New York State.

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Speaker 1: I mean, with your mom in the Bedford Hills prisons

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Speaker 1: in New York exactly right, Bedford Hills at the time,

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Speaker 1: maybe still today, but throughout her tenure there was the

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Speaker 1: only maximum security prison for women in New York State,

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Speaker 1: and so anyone considered maximum security um and it might

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Speaker 1: seem odd to folks who aren't familiar with the American

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Speaker 1: criminal legal system, but my mother was there serving a

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Speaker 1: sentence for the most serious offense on the books. She

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Speaker 1: had participated it in an armed robbery that left three men,

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Speaker 1: two of them police officers, dead, and though she wasn't

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Speaker 1: personally armed and didn't personally hurt anybody, she was ultimately

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Speaker 1: convicted of murder, and she was in a prison that

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Speaker 1: was designed for people who were maximum security. Makes sense,

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Speaker 1: given her charges and the violence in her case, for

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Speaker 1: her to have been in that prison, certainly at the

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Speaker 1: outset of her commitment. But ask yourself, why would a

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Speaker 1: maximum security prison be filled with women serving as long

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Speaker 1: or longer in some instances for entirely non violent drug

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Speaker 1: related offenses. So I mean your you know, your background

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Speaker 1: is impressive. I mean Yale Road scholar, Yale Law School.

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Speaker 1: You clerked for Judge Chuck Bryer, the little brother of

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Speaker 1: the Justice Stephen Bryer, became a public defender, and then

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Speaker 1: you get elected, what in your late thirties, to be

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Speaker 1: the District Attorney of San Francisco. I remember at the time,

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Speaker 1: and I had people close to me who were working

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Speaker 1: closely with you, and everybody was enormously excited. Did you anticipate,

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Speaker 1: um some of the extent of the backlash that would happen?

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Speaker 1: I remember, I think somebody like set up a website

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Speaker 1: like the day after you were elected recall Chasy Bludan,

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Speaker 1: before you've even been inaugurated. But did you anticipate how

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Speaker 1: significant and serious this backlash would be? Certainly we expected

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Speaker 1: pushback and backlash, and folks like Kim Fox and Larry

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Speaker 1: Krasner and George Gascon and others who are part of

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Speaker 1: this national movement across the country Rachel Rowlins Marylyn Mosby

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Speaker 1: had given me fair warning after I was elected that

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Speaker 1: I would expect this kind of thing. But but no,

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Speaker 1: there's no way until you've lived it and experienced it

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Speaker 1: that you could be fully prepared for the intensity and

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Speaker 1: the vitriol and the dishonesty in the attacks. You know,

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Speaker 1: it would be great if we could have honest policy

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Speaker 1: discussions about climate change, or public schools or the drug war,

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Speaker 1: and we could agree to disagree on some points. We

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Speaker 1: could look at data, and we could let policy and

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Speaker 1: practice and government institutions be driven by honest, nuanced conversations.

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Speaker 1: That is not the way that the world works today,

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Speaker 1: if ever, and instead we are seeing a tremendous amount

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Speaker 1: of intentional misinformation, vitriolic attacks. Um, it's a very intentional

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Speaker 1: and explicit and frankly successful part of the broader republican playbook.

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Speaker 1: And we saw Donald Trump and his allies us it

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Speaker 1: extremely effectively for years, and we see it even in

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Speaker 1: deep blue cities like San Francisco as a key part

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Speaker 1: of the political discourse and the way in which public

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Speaker 1: perception is shaped about issues like drugs. Now, of course,

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Speaker 1: you win office in late nineteen and just a few

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Speaker 1: months later, COVID happens, and the kind of the world

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Speaker 1: is in this bizarre, confused state. People are off the

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Speaker 1: streets in many cities, including my home in New York.

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Speaker 1: You see, you know, a disproportion number that people are

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Speaker 1: out in the street to the time where people suffering

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Speaker 1: from mental illness, people are homeless, I mean, a lot

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Speaker 1: of people not feeling safe anymore walking around. This obviously

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Speaker 1: has happening in San Francisco, and some months later the

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Speaker 1: killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests

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Speaker 1: and some of the violence that you know happened during

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Speaker 1: that time as well. And then of course you're setting

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Speaker 1: up and running an office when all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: nobody's coming into the office anymore, and you're all online.

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Speaker 1: So what were those first three four or five months

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Speaker 1: like for you? And I was elected in November, I

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Speaker 1: wasn't sworn into office until January, almost exactly two months

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Speaker 1: after I was sworn in um the mayor declared a

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Speaker 1: state of emergency and essentially shut down the city, and

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Speaker 1: San Francisco has been one of the slowest cities in

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Speaker 1: the country to reopen. People are still working remotely in

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Speaker 1: higher proportions than in almost any other big city, and

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Speaker 1: so it's had a dramatic impact on our courts. Are

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Speaker 1: courthouse remains partially closed, we never fully reopened, We never

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Speaker 1: got back to full capacity for trying cases. The impact

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Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen and the shutdown on crime trends was

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Speaker 1: far more dramatic and long lasting than we initially anticipated.

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Speaker 1: UM And, as you pointed out, trying to run an office,

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Speaker 1: trying to shape the culture of an office, trying to

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Speaker 1: do training, trying to build trust and increase moral in

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Speaker 1: an office when you're doing everything over zoom, including new

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Speaker 1: job interviews and orientations for people you're on boarding, was

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Speaker 1: tremendously challenging. And there's no question that it was a huge,

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Speaker 1: huge obstacle to my ability to build relationships with and

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Speaker 1: trust with some of the constituencies in San Francisco who

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Speaker 1: maybe hadn't supported my election in the first place, but

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Speaker 1: in principle agree with the policies we were implementing UM,

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Speaker 1: But we just didn't have any opportunity to get face

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Speaker 1: to face in the same room with a lot of

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Speaker 1: people across the city because of the pandemic. Well, I'm curious,

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Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned before Larry Krasny, or the district

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Speaker 1: attorney in Philadelphia who ran on a progressive agenda and

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Speaker 1: they got re elected. And I had him as a

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Speaker 1: guest on Psychoactive last year, and I'm wondering, you know,

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Speaker 1: in your office like his, part of what happened was

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Speaker 1: tons of the old time prosecutors in the office left

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Speaker 1: or were fired by you know him or by you.

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Speaker 1: And meanwhile a number of people come in from the

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Speaker 1: public defender's office where you had worked before. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there must have been a massive culture clash when that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing happens. So can you describe what that

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Speaker 1: was like? What you have to remember is that people

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Speaker 1: who have spent five or ten or twenty five years

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Speaker 1: of their lives working as district attorneys in a traditional

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Speaker 1: carstoral prosecutor's office, the office that wholeheartedly and enthusiastically waged

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Speaker 1: the war on drugs, are not doing it primarily for

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Speaker 1: the money. They're not doing it primarily for the glory.

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Speaker 1: And so they believe on some core level that what

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Speaker 1: they're doing is in the interest of justice and is

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Speaker 1: in fact promoting public safety. And so if somebody an

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Speaker 1: outsider like Larry or myself comes along and runs a

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Speaker 1: race in which were openly critical of the War on

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Speaker 1: drugs or of many of the traditional ways that prosecutors

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Speaker 1: have behaved, like seeking convictions at all costs, like covering

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Speaker 1: up police misconduct, like refusing to consider the possibility that

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Speaker 1: people have been wrongfully convicted of crimes and are languishing

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Speaker 1: in prisons. Those new approaches that are quintessential parts of

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Speaker 1: the progressive prosecutor movement are not going to be well

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Speaker 1: received by folks who have dedicated their lives and their

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Speaker 1: careers to a very different approach to doing the job.

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Speaker 1: And so yeah, there's inevitably a certain degree of distrust

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Speaker 1: and disconnect, and bureaucracies are very effective at resisting change,

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Speaker 1: digging their heels in, at simply refusing to follow instructions

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Speaker 1: or new policies. We see it with police departments all

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Speaker 1: across the country when efforts at reform are implemented through

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Speaker 1: state legislation or police commissions or police chiefs. Even and

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Speaker 1: certainly we experienced some very active resistance and sabotage from

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Speaker 1: within our ranks. We also, though, and this is important,

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Speaker 1: we also had a large number of staff who were

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Speaker 1: excited and supportive and embraced the vision who had joined

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Speaker 1: the office because it was San Francisco and it was

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Speaker 1: known as a progressive town, and because my predecessor, die

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Speaker 1: Gascone had certainly in his later years begun to implement

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Speaker 1: a lot of reforms that again we see as part

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Speaker 1: of the national conversation around progressive prosecutors. And so there

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Speaker 1: was a mixed a mixed reception, I would say, a

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Speaker 1: lot of resistance and entrenched hostility. And yet also some

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Speaker 1: of the attorneys were and some of the other staff

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Speaker 1: were very open to the ideas um and I learned

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Speaker 1: a tremendous amount from the people in the office over

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Speaker 1: the two and a half years that I had the

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Speaker 1: honor to service district attorney. What do you think in

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Speaker 1: your interactions with the old time prosecutors in your office

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Speaker 1: who remained. Was there anything that you learned from them

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Speaker 1: that really changed the way that you thought about criminal

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Speaker 1: justice or about the role of the prosecutors A good

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Speaker 1: away here, I'm talking about the old line prosecutors who

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Speaker 1: chose not to leave. I learned a lot from from

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Speaker 1: some of these folks, and some of them were public

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Speaker 1: supporters of mine in opposition to the recall. Um, some

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Speaker 1: of them helped me navigate my first ever grand jury

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Speaker 1: indictment in a homicide case that I present to do

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Speaker 1: a grand jury. UM. So you know, there was a

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Speaker 1: lot that I learned from folks both day to day,

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Speaker 1: um nuts and bolts about running the office, about interactions

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Speaker 1: with other agencies like the police and the courts from

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Speaker 1: this side of the aisle. But I think big picture,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that I learned is from these

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Speaker 1: folks and from the job, and you know, is the

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Speaker 1: disconnect between the way the Supreme Court describes the ethical

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Speaker 1: and legal obligations of the prosecutor Minister of justice. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have to be um, justice seekers, not conviction seekers.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're not advocating for a particular party in

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Speaker 1: the case. We represent the people, all of the people. UM.

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Speaker 1: Either way it's described in Supreme Court opinions and in

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Speaker 1: ethical treatises is very very very far removed from the

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Speaker 1: day to day reality of the political pressures of the job,

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Speaker 1: in which there's huge, huge incentive two mitigate political risk

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Speaker 1: and and perceive public safety risk by blocking people up

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Speaker 1: for as long as possible and doing that without regard

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Speaker 1: to evidence or data or justice or even the wishes

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Speaker 1: of the victims. And it's easy to see why goodhearted,

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Speaker 1: well intentioned people in this role would naturally lean and

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Speaker 1: skew towards seeking pre child attention. Seeking incarceration and relying

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Speaker 1: on incarceration is a primary response to the tremendously diverse

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Speaker 1: array of social problems that get dumped on the criminal

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Speaker 1: legal system. I saw why and how that happens, and

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Speaker 1: it made me all the more determined to ensure that

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Speaker 1: my office would not fall victim, would not participate in

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Speaker 1: that horrific aberration of justice and of the real constitutional

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Speaker 1: duties of prosecutors. We'll be talking more after we hear

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Speaker 1: this ad reading about what you did, Junior. Two and

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Speaker 1: a half years there was a piece in the Atlantic

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Speaker 1: and it said Budan has ended cash bail for our listeners,

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Speaker 1: basically the practice whereby your ability to get out on

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Speaker 1: bail once you've been arrested depends on whether or not

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Speaker 1: you can raise the money or not. Um He has

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Speaker 1: ceased prosecuting cases in which the evidence came from quote

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Speaker 1: unque pretextual traffic stops, such as when a police officer

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Speaker 1: pulls over a car for a broken tail light and

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Speaker 1: ends up booking the driver after founding drugs. He you

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Speaker 1: stopped using enhancements that add years to the sentences of

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Speaker 1: gang members. He quit using the stakes three strikes law.

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Speaker 1: He filed charges against the San Francisco police officer accused

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Speaker 1: of brutality. He instituted a commission to identify and overturn

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Speaker 1: wrongful convisitions. He cut the number of young people in

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Speaker 1: car street in half and reduced the pre trial jail population.

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Speaker 1: And he also expanded the use of diversion and restorative

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Speaker 1: justice programs. So accurate description of what you did, in

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Speaker 1: fact do while you were there. Um, we did that stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's all true. We could keep going. Uh, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of work that I'm that I'm proud of that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We promised voters in we would work towards and which

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Speaker 1: in fact we did work towards. Okay, keep going, what else?

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Speaker 1: Tell me some of the other things so our listeners

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Speaker 1: will understand. We launched the Independent Innocence Commission that exonerated

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Speaker 1: a man wrongfully convicted of murder after decades in prison.

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Speaker 1: We created a worker Protection Unit because we recognize that

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Speaker 1: wage theft is causing harm to far far more Americans

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Speaker 1: than most of the property crimes that are traditionally prosecuted.

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Speaker 1: We UM dramatically expanded victim services, including appointing the first

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Speaker 1: ever Chinese speaking head of Victim Services and increasing the

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Speaker 1: number of Chinese speaking staff in our office by over

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Speaker 1: fi UM. We expanded victim services into areas that had

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Speaker 1: never gone before to begin offering services to victims of

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Speaker 1: property crime. To UM work in partnership with both private

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Speaker 1: and public stakeholders to create housing for domestic violence survivors,

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Speaker 1: for example. And we also really embraced our commitment to

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Speaker 1: preventing crime and being proactive rather than reactive, with cases

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Speaker 1: like our groundbreaking lawsuit against the manufact of ghost guns,

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Speaker 1: illegal firearms that are designed to be untraceable and sold

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Speaker 1: on black markets or over the Internet to people who

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Speaker 1: intend to use them to commit crimes. We didn't wait

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Speaker 1: for those crimes to be committed. We filed the major

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Speaker 1: lawsuit against three of the biggest manufacturers of those guns

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Speaker 1: in the nat of California. Now I know that in

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Speaker 1: part of the debate over what was going on leading

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Speaker 1: up to the recall, I mean, you were putting out

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Speaker 1: statistics about in fact, you were charging much more than

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Speaker 1: people said, and other people and and of course you

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Speaker 1: know the stats. Anybody can to some extent manipulated them

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Speaker 1: one way or another. And then with COVID coming in,

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Speaker 1: it's very hard to do, you know, year by year

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Speaker 1: comparisons in any real way. Um, but what's your some

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Speaker 1: of your critics, let's start off with um, good old uh,

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Speaker 1: what's her name? Brooke Jenkins? Right? Who worked in your

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Speaker 1: day's office, who left, and who after you were recalled

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Speaker 1: Mayor London Breed appointed to be your successor. I mean,

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Speaker 1: sending a pretty clear message that she wanted to put

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Speaker 1: a more tough on crime sort of person there. And

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Speaker 1: what she said about you, I'm going to quote Chase

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Speaker 1: has a belief that your approach should be defendant centered.

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Speaker 1: Everything should revolve around what's best for the defendants. He's

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Speaker 1: never let go of his role as the public defender.

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Speaker 1: But she said, a prosecutor's primary function as public safety,

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Speaker 1: you have to serve as an advocate of the victim.

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Speaker 1: So what was or what it would be a response

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Speaker 1: to that? Now? Well, first of all, my office, under

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Speaker 1: my leadership, did more to expand victim services and to

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Speaker 1: increase language access for non English speaking victims than any

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Speaker 1: day in the history of San Francisco, and I am

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Speaker 1: tremendously proud of my record when it comes to advocating

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Speaker 1: for victims personally, meeting with families of homicide victims and

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Speaker 1: more cases than I can count. Asking in every single

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Speaker 1: budget I submitted to the mayor to increase resources for

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Speaker 1: our Victims Services Division is a primary request in my

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Speaker 1: budgets every single year. UM. So, clearly what Brooke was

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Speaker 1: saying in that statement was was political. It was designed

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Speaker 1: to attack and to support the recall, and it was

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Speaker 1: part of an effective campaign. The thing that stands out

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Speaker 1: at me more than just the dishonesty and the typical

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Speaker 1: and traditional dishonesty of um of politics, is that actually

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Speaker 1: our criminal legal system is set up around the defendant.

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Speaker 1: And that's not a choice that I made or one

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Speaker 1: that I necessarily even agree with, but the way that

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Speaker 1: the system works in this country, going back to our

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Speaker 1: Bill of Rights, is that people accused of crimes written

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Speaker 1: into the U. S Constitution in the Bill of Rights,

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Speaker 1: have civil protections, have rights like speedy trial and right

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Speaker 1: to council and the right to confront witnesses against them,

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Speaker 1: have a whole series of rights around which the court

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Speaker 1: processes in this country have been developed over centuries. Victims

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Speaker 1: do not have equivalent rights. They're not even represented in

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Speaker 1: criminal cases. This isn't my interpretation or my view of

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Speaker 1: how it should work. This is what every single criminal

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Speaker 1: case in the state of California says. It says the

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Speaker 1: people verse the name of the defendant. The victim's name

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Speaker 1: is not in the charging document. They're not a party

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Speaker 1: to the case. District attorneys have an obligation under state

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Speaker 1: law to provide services and information to victims, and there's

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Speaker 1: no funding that comes with those obligations. I fought every

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Speaker 1: day it was in office to increase funding so we

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Speaker 1: could do a better job communicating with victims, informing them

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Speaker 1: of their rights, empowering them to make their voice heard.

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Speaker 1: But the notion that I am somehow defendant centered and

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Speaker 1: that is a criticism of me, is actually just an

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Speaker 1: observation about the way the founding fathers designed our legal system,

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Speaker 1: and one that goes back in fact to old England.

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Speaker 1: People accused of crime we're facing deprivation of liberty, have

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Speaker 1: a tremendous number of very strong rights written into our

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Speaker 1: founding document. It is not equivalent. You can't find any

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Speaker 1: equivalent for victims, and maybe that's something we should change.

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Speaker 1: But until we do, her criticism is a criticism of

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Speaker 1: the system, and it's one that she now is responsible

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Speaker 1: for running. M Okay, well, let's get into specifically the

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Speaker 1: drug issue, which is the main focus of the of

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Speaker 1: this podcast. You know, one thing San Francisco has had

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Speaker 1: to deal with. I mean, on the one hand, there's

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Speaker 1: this horrific rate of overdose fatalities, among the highest in

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Speaker 1: the country, notwithstanding a whole lot of progressive public health policies.

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Speaker 1: Um so, you know, far more people dying of of

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Speaker 1: overdose in recent years in San Francisco than died of COVID. Right. Then, secondly,

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Speaker 1: you have an open air drug dealing scene where people

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Speaker 1: can drive through the Tenderloin or some other parts of

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Speaker 1: San Francisco and they see people openly selling drugs or

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Speaker 1: if you walk down that street, you'll be offered drugs.

434
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,679
Speaker 1: Right now, my understanding is that when it comes to

435
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 1: the drug dealing piece of this, that you know, significant,

436
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: maybe half of all the drug dealers, the low level

437
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:58,360
Speaker 1: dealers at least as far as we don't know about

438
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: the higher level dealers, are you know, young guys coming

439
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: out of Central America, mostly Honduran and you know, some

440
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: of them are ourselves even being trafficked into the US.

441
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 1: And one criticism of you was that you specifically charged

442
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: many of these low level drug sellers Hondurans who are

443
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: not legally in the country. You charged in in such

444
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 1: a way as to avoid them being deported and that

445
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: really piste people off. So tell me more about that. Well, First,

446
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: a slight technical correction. We did not make charges or

447
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: charging decisions in ways designed to avoid deportation. We charged

448
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: drug sales cases across the board, regardless of immigration status,

449
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: based on the facts and the law. One usually violations

450
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: of the Health and Safety Code for the relevant quantity

451
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: and kinds of drugs. What we did do, and we

452
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 1: did this consistent with a requirement under state law, was

453
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: we considered immigration status when negotiating plea deals. And that's

454
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: a requirement of mandate. It comes from California state law

455
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: predates my tenure. And what that meant is if we

456
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: were negotiating a plea, which is how n of criminal

457
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: cases are resolved across the country, and we were aware

458
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: that the person we were negotiating with was not a citizen.

459
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 1: We were required to consider their immigration status and to

460
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: try to mitigate any collateral consequences that the guilty plea

461
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: would have. As it happens that with standard practice in

462
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,199
Speaker 1: the office before I took over again, because it's a

463
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 1: mandate of state law. You are correct that I was

464
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: attacked viciously by many people, including Brooke, for simply following

465
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,399
Speaker 1: state law and staying the course HIGN policy that had

466
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: been implemented before my administration. So what do you anticipate

467
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: she's going to do differently on this? Is she going

468
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: to not follow state law? Is she gonna try to

469
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: charge people so they are much more likely to get deported?

470
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 1: What do you think? Well, it's not gonna there's no

471
00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: way meaningfully to change the charging decisions on the front,

472
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,199
Speaker 1: and except for what she has already done, which I

473
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: guess is to charge simple possession. Um, we under my

474
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: administration and frankly under my predecessor in his final years,

475
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: we're declining to charge virtually all standalone misdemeanor drug possession

476
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: or paraphernalia charges. The only cases that we filed were

477
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: felony level possession with intent to sell. Our actual sales,

478
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: and there's really not a meaningfully different way to charge

479
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: those cases, but there is a different, meaningfully different way

480
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,880
Speaker 1: to negotiate them. And it seems from the tough talk

481
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: and rhetoric thus far that the new administration is determined

482
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: to refuse to consider immigration consequences and to seek convictions

483
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: that will in most cases not actually result in deportation directly,

484
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: but which will make someone deeport of ball and have

485
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: grave lifelong consequences for immigration status and adjustment of status

486
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: without any increased benefit to public safe or other meaningful

487
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: consequences or sanctions that could possibly serve as a deterrent um.

488
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: So you know, in some ways, it's funny we're talking

489
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: about such a tragic topic. As you point out, the

490
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: overdoses every single day are just devastating San Francisco and

491
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: really communities across the country. But San Francisco has been

492
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: hit uniquely hard and and I suppose it's it's the

493
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: real human tragedy that we're experiencing that we see in

494
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 1: in certain neighborhoods in our city, Soma and Tenderloin. To

495
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: be sure, that perhaps justifies in some minds doubling down

496
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: on the war on drugs. Going back to a policy

497
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: that I think, in our heart of hearts we all

498
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: know has never worked and will never work. But these

499
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: conversations and these surges of policing and arrests and pledges

500
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: to be more punitive in response to drug dealing and

501
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 1: the associated crime and the tenderloin in particular, or not

502
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: new to San Francisco. In fact, if you go back,

503
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: I'm looking actually as we speak right now at a

504
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: page from the San Francisco Examiner back in in an

505
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: article about how horrible the tenderline is. And it's describing

506
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: open drug sales and use. It's describing um people with

507
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: multiple drug charges back on the streets. It's describing kids

508
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: witnessing crimes and people saying the tenderloin has never been worse.

509
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: It's pushing for a strategy to flood the zone with

510
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: police and quoting police officers saying in another two or

511
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: three years, I do think we'll see some things turn around. Here.

512
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: We're having exactly the same conversations today as though we

513
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 1: didn't try this thirty forty years ago. It's the definition

514
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: of insanity, and sadly it's being um. It's it's tragedies,

515
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: and it's fear that's being exploited for cynical political gain

516
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: by folks like Brook Jenkins. M But so I mean,

517
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,959
Speaker 1: let's just open this up bigger jasa when you actually

518
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: think about what's going on. There's a number of cities

519
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: around the U. S. And certainly we saw this in

520
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: other countries. You know, they really did find a way

521
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 1: of significantly diminishing the open air drug scenes. I mean

522
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: New York City where I live. Many other places had

523
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: you know, major open air drug scenes, but those are

524
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: much less so. San Francisco is a bit distinctive in

525
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: its being one of a smaller number of cities which

526
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: still has this open air drug scene. And obviously it

527
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: obviously has a homelessness issue, like Los Angeles and some

528
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,479
Speaker 1: other places with nice weather and liberal governments, you know,

529
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: where there's a you know, a very substantial homeless population.

530
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: So before we get to the homelessness one, though, the

531
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: question is what I mean, if you had more power,

532
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: if you weren't just a d a, if you were

533
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: the mayor, right, I mean Mayor London. Breed has been

534
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: generally antagonistic to you. She's been balancing, you know, sounding

535
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: like a progressive with being quite tough on crime and

536
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff, and she appointed, you know,

537
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: a kind of tough person to be your successor. But

538
00:31:57,600 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: if you had, if you were in the mayor's position,

539
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 1: and you know, you can't change state law, you can't

540
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: change federal law. But what would you be pushing for

541
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: to deal with this open air drug dealing thing? What?

542
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: What do you think the answer is, Well, first of all,

543
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 1: let's be clear, talking quote unquote tough is not the

544
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: same thing as having effective policies or even being tough.

545
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: If if we want to be tough on open air

546
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: drug use, if we want to be tough on overdoses,

547
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: then we need safe consumption sites and we need treatment

548
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 1: on demand. I mean, let's be very very clear. The

549
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: so called tough approach is actually criminogenic. It's creating crime.

550
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: We know that. You don't even need to just look

551
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: at UH narcotics, look at prohibition on alcohol and how

552
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: that played out in this country. It created mafias, it

553
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: created al capone, It generates a tremendous amount of crime.

554
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: I was talking to my father about some of the

555
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: men who were in prison with him, and some of

556
00:32:52,080 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: them who were there for crimes unrelated on the charges

557
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: themselves to drugs. Were there because they were doing two

558
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: three robberies a week to pay for their drug abbit.

559
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: If you understand that addiction is a public health crisis,

560
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: that overdoses and open air drug use our public health crises,

561
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 1: then you see that district attorneys and police have a

562
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: very very limited role to play and responding or solving

563
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: these problems. Instead, we need to follow the strategies that

564
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: have been successfully implemented in other parts of the world,

565
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 1: places like Portugal, pit places like Vancouver, where you have

566
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: designated safe consumption sites. And let me tell you why

567
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: that's important. First of all, nobody dies in safe consumption sites.

568
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: Nobody dies of overdoses. In safe consumption sites, you dramatically

569
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: reduce the human suffering and the loss of life from

570
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: this addiction epidemic. Second of all, you take some of

571
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: the urban blight and the real devastating experiences that children

572
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: and families with school aged children have stepping over people

573
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,479
Speaker 1: who are passed out in the streets, human feces, hypodermic needles,

574
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: and you cansolidate the drug use in a safe, clean

575
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,240
Speaker 1: place where it doesn't need to invade the daily lives

576
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 1: of small business owners. And immigrant families and so on,

577
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 1: and and third, and this is critical. Safe consumption sites

578
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 1: are a place where we can connect people who have

579
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: substance use disorders with harm reduction services so that when

580
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: they're ready to engage with strategies to reduce dependence, when

581
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: they're ready to try and redirect their lives and get

582
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 1: housing or employment, they have access to services where they

583
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: can get that help. In San Francisco, there has never

584
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: been a political commitment from city Hall, not from this

585
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 1: mayor prior mayors, to make treatment on demand a reality,

586
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: or to make safe consumption sites a reality. And until

587
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: we have housing and treatment, we are always going to

588
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,840
Speaker 1: be reading those same stories in the San Francisco Examiner,

589
00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: whether it's two but on the safe injection site. So

590
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: I think many of our listeners will know because we've

591
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 1: talked about this before. There are now dozens of safe

592
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: injection sites, which are sometimes known as over those prevention centers,

593
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: in dozens of cities around the world, in Europe, in Canada,

594
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: in Australia. There's now one operating above ground in New York,

595
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,399
Speaker 1: and there's even some operating semi below ground in San

596
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: Francisco and some other cities. Right, And the evidence is,

597
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 1: as Chase has says, right, these are essentially needle exchange

598
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: programs with a bat with a back room and a

599
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 1: nurse president where people can safely inject the drugs they

600
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: brought with them. They're not provided with those drugs. And

601
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:34,360
Speaker 1: we know they reduce public new sense when they reduce

602
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: over those fatalities, effect eliminate over those fatalities. They do

603
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: all these good things. The question is what's been the

604
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: problem in San Francisco. I mean, as we speak, right,

605
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:44,560
Speaker 1: there's a bill that went through the state of the

606
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: state legislature. I think it's sitting on Governor Gavin Newsom's desk.

607
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,399
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that he knows it's the right

608
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 1: thing to do, and I have no doubt that he worries,

609
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: like hell, how he's going to explain signing that thing

610
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: into law if in fact he runs for national office.

611
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: So he's in a andry he's going to deal with.

612
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,240
Speaker 1: But the question I'd understand is why didn't London Breed

613
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: do what de Blasio did, just say go for it.

614
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:09,479
Speaker 1: I mean a few years ago you had to worry

615
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: about Trump prosecutors, you know, going after you, and they

616
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 1: made a big thing of you know, the Trump Justice Department,

617
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: We're going to go after anybody who approves these safe

618
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: injection sites. But now you have a friendly administration, Biden administration,

619
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: which hasn't said anything on the issue as yet, but

620
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: they're not going to go after people. You have a

621
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: friendly guy in the governor's office who's not going to

622
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: go after people. Why do you think London breed it?

623
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:34,760
Speaker 1: For that matter, some other California mayors just don't proceed

624
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: now the way that de Blasio did. It's a great question.

625
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: I wish I had the answer. It's something that I

626
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: pushed for and called for every single day I was

627
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: in office. I was urgent our city to move in

628
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: that direction, and I knew what a huge impact it

629
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 1: would have had on reducing fail overdoses, on cleaning up

630
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: parts of the city that were very difficult to live in,

631
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 1: and there was virtually no action from city Hall. And

632
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: it's one of the tremendous frustrations that I have and

633
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:05,840
Speaker 1: that many San Franciscans have, And and you know, I

634
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: think in many ways it was a strategic decision because

635
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: it seems have been very effective and useful for the

636
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: mayor to have an opportunity to blame me for the

637
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: police department, to blame me and my policies for these

638
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: age old problems that will never be solved until we

639
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: invest seriously and the kinds of solutions that we know work.

640
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: But Chasi on that one. I mean, she's publicly on

641
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: record of supporting safe injection sites, right, she has the model.

642
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:32,760
Speaker 1: To Blasio, do you understand is there a real legal

643
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 1: argument or fear? I mean, there already is what a

644
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 1: long standing safe injection side in San Francisco, at least

645
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 1: one which is sort of operating with the understanding of

646
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: the cops. Everybody knows it's there, right and it's doing

647
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: good work. It's just a matter of doing what they

648
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:47,800
Speaker 1: did in New York and saying, Okay, it's going to

649
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: be legally sanctioned at this point. But any sense about

650
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: what would be the argument that her legal counsel or

651
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,399
Speaker 1: anybody else would be telling her why she shouldn't move

652
00:37:57,440 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: forward the way to Blasio, did you know the person

653
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: who advises the mayor on legal issues and at least

654
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:08,440
Speaker 1: formally is the city attorney. The city attorney is normally

655
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 1: an elected position who represents all the city agencies, including

656
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: the mayor, and if, for example, we were to open

657
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: a safe consumption site, and if the Feds were to

658
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: come in and try to shut it down, it would

659
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: be the job of the city attorney to defend San

660
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: Francisco against that federal incursion in the courts. The current

661
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: city attorney was appointed by the mayor. It was her pick.

662
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: If this was a priority for her, if this was

663
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: something she cared about, certainly it's something that the city

664
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: attorney would defend her on. It's absolutely puzzling to me

665
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: why we have not done more on this as a city.

666
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: And I wish that, you know, the district Attorney's obviously

667
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,240
Speaker 1: the budget or the mandate to do these things. It's

668
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,320
Speaker 1: it's not really what we do. We need the mayor

669
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 1: and the Department of Public Health to step up. And

670
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: and mind you, the mayor appoints the head of the

671
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 1: Department of Public Health, and they have in San Francisco

672
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: a budget that's well over two billion dollars. There's a

673
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 1: massive budget, tremendous resources available, and it simply has not

674
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:09,439
Speaker 1: been a priority for people in the city. And it's

675
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: to all of our detriment. Well, let's go bigger this.

676
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 1: I mean, when you look with part of what old

677
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: saman in Europe beginning thirty years ago, and they were

678
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: dealing with open air drug scenes and overdose as we

679
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: were dealing with in the US. They didn't pull back

680
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:23,240
Speaker 1: all law enforcement. I mean, they still had people getting

681
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:24,840
Speaker 1: busted and all this sort of thing, but there was

682
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: a high level of coordination between They called it the

683
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 1: Frankfurt system at one point in the early nineties where

684
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: the mayor would call a meeting every Monday morning with

685
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: the head of prosecution, head of police, head of Housing services,

686
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,439
Speaker 1: head of health services, and where if the cops said,

687
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:41,399
Speaker 1: well we have to crack down on such and such

688
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: a park, We're gonna do it Wednesday morning, somebody from

689
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: Housing services will say, well, wait, wait a second, wait,

690
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: can you wait till Thursday so that we can make

691
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,959
Speaker 1: sure we're set up to receive the people you're gonna

692
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 1: be pushing out. But beyond that, they also did things,

693
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: beginning in Switzerland thirty years ago, to start setting up

694
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: heroin maintenance clinics for p both for whom method on

695
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: or drug free treatment was not working. They said, let

696
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: people come into clinics and get pharmaceutical heroin and they

697
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 1: can't take it home, but it will be like a

698
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: well run method on program, but they can get pharmaceutical heroin.

699
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: And that thing worked in Switzerland. It's spread to other

700
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: European countries and to Canada. You know, reduce crime, reduce

701
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: over those reduced addiction, help people stabilize their lives. And

702
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: now you see in British Columbia, especially Vancouver, you know

703
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: more and more movement and support by first the provincial

704
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: government and now the national government for what was called

705
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: safe Supply, which is basically a policy that says, you know,

706
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: if people are going to be buying drugs no matter what,

707
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: from the illicit market, let's allow them to get it

708
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: instead from illegally regulated source and either they get it

709
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 1: for free or they get it for a few bucks.

710
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,320
Speaker 1: Allowing people to get the drug they want from illegal source.

711
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: Would you support all that sort of stuff. It seems

712
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,720
Speaker 1: they have worked really well in Europe, and I think

713
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of evidence behind it. And on the

714
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:02,760
Speaker 1: other hand, what we in doing is far more costly,

715
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: far less humane, and is not working. So yeah, I

716
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:11,760
Speaker 1: would support those approaches. I think we need a radical

717
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 1: rethinking of how we respond to addiction in this country

718
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 1: and Frankly, I was sorry we didn't have more time

719
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: to try and push those changes. We were continuing to

720
00:41:21,239 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: file drug sales cases. In fact, we filed them at

721
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: a higher rate than my predecessor did when the police

722
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,839
Speaker 1: brought us family drug arrests. Not because I thought it

723
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: was in and of itself going to work, but because

724
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: I recognized the need not to simply abandon the field,

725
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: abandon the space. And it was unfortunate that, as we

726
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:42,320
Speaker 1: talked about a moment ago, the city was not willing

727
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 1: to do the work on the public health front that

728
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: would have truly been necessary to decrease our reliance on

729
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: cars roll police responses to these issues that are clearly

730
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: public health issues and that have been dealt with effectively

731
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: in other jurisdictions. Let's take a break here and go

732
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 1: to an ad If you look at the issue of

733
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 1: all the drug dealers, if that's not so much a

734
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: health issue, that's something else. And the question is, if

735
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: you were in charge of the police department, if you

736
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: were talking to the police chief, I don't know what

737
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: your relationship with him was, what was like, but what

738
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,319
Speaker 1: would be that your your answer um giving current laws

739
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:34,399
Speaker 1: for that matter, about what to do with that. What

740
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,720
Speaker 1: do you think is actually the optimal answer giving current

741
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,760
Speaker 1: laws to dealing you know, with that situation, not the overdose,

742
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: not the open droid use, but the drug dealing on

743
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: the streets. Well, I think in an ideal world, if

744
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: you have the kind of policies you just described, you

745
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: don't have a market for illegal street drugs because people

746
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: who are seriously dependent on illegal drugs can go and

747
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: get safe supply somewhere. In an ideal world, the role

748
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: of police is far more limited when it comes to

749
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: these sorts of public health crises. They're not responding to

750
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:14,240
Speaker 1: try to reverse overdoses. Instead, they're simply ensuring that people

751
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 1: are consuming in the safe consumption stites and not elsewhere.

752
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: But even on safe consumption sites that people who use

753
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:22,719
Speaker 1: drugs there have to get them from some place else

754
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: and it's an illicit source. So, you know, in Switzerland,

755
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: back in the early nineties, before they started the heroin

756
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: prescription programs, they had a place that became known as

757
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 1: Needle Park. It was the plot Spits, a park behind

758
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 1: the main train station. It was somewhat set off from

759
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,760
Speaker 1: the rest of the city and basically at some point

760
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: the you know, the city government said, you know what,

761
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: We're going to let all the drug dealers and all

762
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: the drug users use there in that park, right, and

763
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: if they caught people on the streets, they say, get

764
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 1: to that park or we're busting you. And for the

765
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 1: first year or so year and a half it worked

766
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: really well. The public health services were there, the drug dealers,

767
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: everybody could see that, you know, the whole thing was working.

768
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: And then at some point they just got total, really

769
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: out of control and they had to shut it down

770
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,839
Speaker 1: and start doing something else. I mean, some people thinks

771
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: the Tenderloins like that, except zillion people drive through the

772
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:11,399
Speaker 1: Tenderloin all the time. It's highly visible. You know, it's

773
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: embarrassing for people who live in San Francisco, not in

774
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:17,239
Speaker 1: those neighborhoods, and it's bad for tourism. It's bad for

775
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 1: the sense of public order and public safety. I mean,

776
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 1: do you think something like that might work in San Francisco? Well,

777
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:26,280
Speaker 1: I think they, as you said, I mean, they've essentially

778
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: done it with the Tenderloine for decades. It's been city

779
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:33,399
Speaker 1: policy and police policy to push open air drug used

780
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: into essentially a containment zone. As ironic as it is,

781
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: It's not surprising to anybody who's paid close attention that

782
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: when interim appointed District Attorney Brook Jenkins went to do

783
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: her big press conference on how she was gonna take

784
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: the war on drugs seriously, she did it in the

785
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:54,760
Speaker 1: Tenderloine and across the street from a press conference, people

786
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: were openly using illegal drugs and selling them. The police

787
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: were there. The police walked by drug sales and drug

788
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: use all day every day in the Tenderloin. And although

789
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 1: they get a lot of overtime and do a few

790
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: hundred operations a year where they do buy bust, the

791
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 1: reality is there's virtually no meaningful enforcement efforts. I think

792
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 1: during my administration, police were bringing us on average to

793
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: felony drug arrests today in a city where if you

794
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 1: read the national news and if you spend any time

795
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 1: in the Tenderloin, there is a very very real, big problem.

796
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: You'd think it'd be thousands and thousands of arrests, and

797
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: instead it's to a day. And and then the notion

798
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 1: that somehow being tougher quote unquote on the two people

799
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: that the police arrest each day is going to meaningfully

800
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: solve problems that are decades in the making. It's just

801
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: it's just dishonest. But the Police All Association was saying, well,

802
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 1: why should we bust them all if you're just giving

803
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: them all the same day release or things like that.

804
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: In fact, even if they were arresting its thousand, they

805
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: would just be replaced with another thousand. So it seems

806
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: like an entirely kind of you know, chasing one's tail

807
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: sort of policy where the whole game seems to be

808
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,839
Speaker 1: about who can be blamed for. Was unsightly and not

809
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: working about all this, and you ended up being the

810
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: guy who got blamed. Well, everybody loves to have a

811
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: place to point the finger. That's that's true just about

812
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: anywhere you go in the world. Yeah, So for our listeners,

813
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: just you're aware of what happened in San Francisco was

814
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: a KIPAI started going to recall Chase Uh. It was

815
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 1: funded by some wealthy folks and Silicon Valley some Republican

816
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: folks as well. You had activists in the Asian American

817
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: community up at arms. You had wealthier people in San Francisco,

818
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: some people live in the community, and everything started to

819
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 1: coalesce around Chase of Boudan being the person responsible um,

820
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: for all of San Francisco's problems. In fact, it was

821
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: I think the editorial paget of the San Francisco Examiner

822
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 1: called it the chase of Boudin derangement syndrome, where anything

823
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: and everything would be blamed on him. Even in Humboldt County,

824
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles north of San Francisco, the Border of

825
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:07,359
Speaker 1: Supervisors put out a release blaming Chaser for the fact

826
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: that fentinyl was showing up in Humboldt. Now there was

827
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff going on as well, right,

828
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: I mean, there was COVID and people going crazy. There

829
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: was you know, this stuff around defund the police that

830
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 1: got people's backs up, and a lot of things. But

831
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 1: a lot of the things you had done were not

832
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: radically different. I mean, but your predecessors, Terrence Hallinan Kamala Harris,

833
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 1: George Gasco, and I've known all of them, they were oftentimes,

834
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 1: you know, had had to deal with the same sorts

835
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: of assaults and charges that you had to deal with.

836
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: But somehow the stuff all stuck with you. Why do

837
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 1: you think I don't have an answer for you? Um.

838
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: I mean, we certainly were living through really unprecedented times.

839
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: The role of social media and shaping public consciousness, the

840
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: resurgence of recalls as a tactic for those who can't

841
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:59,479
Speaker 1: win power through normal elections, the Black Lives Matter movement

842
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,799
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, and a whole series of factors I

843
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: think shaped the the particular outcome. And I don't I

844
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: don't entirely know. I mean it's I mean, it was

845
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: also kind of recall fever, right. You had those folks

846
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: on the on the school board who got recalled, so

847
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: there was a whole sense of recall recall. Recall is

848
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:22,879
Speaker 1: something that California has done. I remember when Governor Grey

849
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: Davis got recalled exactly. And that's the key, I mean

850
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: for folks who aren't familiar, you know, in many jurisdictions

851
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: in California, where recalls are notoriously easy to get on

852
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: the ballot. If a recall does succeed in getting on

853
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: the ballot, then other candidates throw their name in the

854
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: ring and get their name listed on the ballot, and

855
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: voters choose not only whether they want to recall, say

856
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 1: Governor Newsom, but also if the recall succeeds, who do

857
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: they want to replace him? And looking at um Larry

858
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: Elder for example, as the likely replacement for Gavin Newsom

859
00:48:55,760 --> 00:49:00,120
Speaker 1: can motivate even people that deeply despise his role as

860
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: governor his work as governor to vote against the recall um.

861
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: The same thing is true in other jurisdictions like Los Angeles,

862
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: if there's a recall on the ballot, other candidates for

863
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: the office get their name listed and then voters have

864
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: to choose. In San Francisco, by contrast, where it's very

865
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: easy to get on the ballot as a recall, there

866
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 1: are no other candidates, and so the recall against me

867
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: was able to spend unlimited political dollars. They spend more

868
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 1: than seven million in the end, simply attacking and amplifying

869
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: criticisms without ever advancing a single concrete policy proposal or candidate.

870
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: And in fact, when people pitched reporters on um criticisms

871
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: of some of the people like Brook Jenkins who were

872
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,440
Speaker 1: in the running to replace me, if the recall succeeded,

873
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:50,439
Speaker 1: reporters would say, well, they're not running for office, they're

874
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 1: not on the ballot. Nobody's interested in this story. It's

875
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: a dynamic which very very few, if any, elected officials

876
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 1: could serve. I've imagine if President Biden, for example, had

877
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:07,360
Speaker 1: to face an upper down vote yes or no. No.

878
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: He may well be able to win re election if

879
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:16,280
Speaker 1: he's running against Donald Trump or Rhonda's antis, but running

880
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 1: against yourself is something that virtually no like an official

881
00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: could survive. Yeah, well, okay, so now there's somebody your predecessor,

882
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: George Gascon, who's now the district attorney in Los Angeles.

883
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:31,719
Speaker 1: One of the things he said, and tell me if

884
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: you think this is fair or not. He goes, this

885
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: is a quote one of the mistakes that chas the

886
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 1: maide that I learned from it, and he will readily recognize.

887
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:41,760
Speaker 1: He says, is he was trying to talk to people

888
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 1: about data. People don't care about data. This is about emotions.

889
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 1: This is about how you perceive and feel, and you

890
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: cannot use data to deal with feelings. And I think

891
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 1: that was a failure, and by the time he kind

892
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:56,359
Speaker 1: of woke up to that, it was too late for him.

893
00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: Fair common by George Gascon or not and a great

894
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: fair comment. Um. I think it's important to have policies

895
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 1: that are driven by data, that are informed by data,

896
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: that are backed up by evidence and and and grounded

897
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 1: in research. And as an elected official. It's important to

898
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: meet voters where they're at and to understand that what

899
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: they're feeling matters, whether or not it's empirically supported. And

900
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 1: we spent far too much time and energy showing people's

901
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 1: statistics about crime rates being down by double digits, about

902
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: prosecution rates being up, trying to correct mistakes and in

903
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: in mainstream media coverage about the issues and remind them

904
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: that it's not our decision if somebody is held in

905
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 1: custody pre trial, it's the decision of the judge or

906
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 1: all the different things, the nuances, and we spent way

907
00:51:42,120 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: too much time and energy trying to correct the record.

908
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: And people needed to know that they were being heard,

909
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 1: that their fears, however connected or disconnected to what you know,

910
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,800
Speaker 1: macro level data showed their fears were being listened to

911
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,399
Speaker 1: and taken seriously. And I think that's something we didn't

912
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 1: succeed in doing, even when we tried our best. It

913
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: was something that obviously we didn't get through to enough

914
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: people on I'm curious. I mean, when you think I'm

915
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: not imagining if you run for office again for this position,

916
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: let's say next year or some other time in the future,

917
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: can you vision yourself getting really outspoken and angry about

918
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: some vicious killing, about some homicide, about something in a

919
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: way that taps into the anger and frustration that people

920
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: who are piste off at their house or you know,

921
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 1: just got broken into, or that their car just got

922
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 1: broken or stolen or whatever. I mean, was that something

923
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: you did? Was it repellent to you to do that?

924
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:42,720
Speaker 1: Do you think you would do it in the future.

925
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 1: I did do it, and I wouldn't do it in

926
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 1: the future. People deserve to be safe and deserve to

927
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:50,280
Speaker 1: feel safe. And when that feeling of safety had violated,

928
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 1: especially with violent crime, it's outrageous, it's offensive, it's harmful,

929
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: it's destructive, and we need firm in quick response. We

930
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: need accountability, We need to ancients. I have absolutely no

931
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 1: qualms or hesitation about saying that, and I said it

932
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: loudly and clearly throughout my administration. But I wouldn't do

933
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:13,360
Speaker 1: it in ways that undermined the legitimacy of the jury

934
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: trial process, that prejudged the outcome of the case or

935
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 1: the evidence. You know, there is often a tremendous amount

936
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:23,439
Speaker 1: of political and public pressure after a high profile crime

937
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 1: occurs to come out and condemn the person that's been

938
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:31,359
Speaker 1: arrested and commit to punishing them to the fullest extent

939
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: of the law, or what have you. And it's it's

940
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:36,760
Speaker 1: actually unethical to do that. We don't know the false

941
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 1: state of the evidence. A jury is going to decide

942
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 1: whether this is the person and whether a crime was

943
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:44,799
Speaker 1: actually committed, and so by using the media in a

944
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 1: way that tells the scales of justice, we violate a

945
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 1: core ethical canon. We need to wait and see how

946
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: the case develops. We don't know what the mitigation will be,

947
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: or what the defenses will be that will be presented,

948
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: and so I think it's a very delicate balancing act

949
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:05,239
Speaker 1: to represent and and speak the outrage of the community

950
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:08,399
Speaker 1: and the outrage that I feel personally when looking at

951
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 1: some of these heinous crimes, but not to do it

952
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:12,720
Speaker 1: in a way that could lead the defense to get

953
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: my office kicked off the case for being biased, or

954
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:20,280
Speaker 1: or reversal or a change of venue because we've tainted

955
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:23,280
Speaker 1: the jury pool case. Apart from all the concerns around

956
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:26,319
Speaker 1: crime in San Francisco, the issue of homelessness has been

957
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 1: a huge one and it's apparent to anybody. I mean,

958
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: I saw it when I was visiting their people who

959
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: live there complained about it, and it seems like when

960
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: people are throwing everything in the kitchen, think at you

961
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: that homelessness was one of the other ones that was.

962
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: You know, you've got a lot of blame for Yes,

963
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 1: I agree, and we did speak out about the need

964
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 1: to build housing and to expand shelters, but it's not

965
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: something within the perv of the district attorney. I have

966
00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 1: no mandate or budget or staff to address the issues

967
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 1: of homelessness, and no law in this state or in

968
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: this country allows me to jail somebody simply for being

969
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:03,880
Speaker 1: poor or unhoused, even if I wanted to do it,

970
00:55:03,960 --> 00:55:05,319
Speaker 1: even if I thought it was the right thing to do,

971
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:09,760
Speaker 1: which I don't. No law, no authority, empowers a district

972
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: attorney to deprive someone of liberty because they're homeless. And

973
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: so to the the extent that people in this city are

974
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,560
Speaker 1: frustrated with visible homelessness and they're looking to the district

975
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 1: attorney to solve that problem, they're going to be sorely

976
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: disappointed no matter who is named by the mayor in

977
00:55:25,920 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 1: the future elected by the people to serve as district attorney.

978
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: So chase that the overdose issue. I mean, San Francisco

979
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: is almost notorious in this regard. It's over those fatality

980
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 1: rate is one of the highest in the country. It's

981
00:55:39,640 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 1: much higher than the rate of death from COVID over

982
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 1: the last few years. Uh. Now, this obviously is not

983
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 1: an issue that falls directly in the responsibility of the

984
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,920
Speaker 1: district attorney. But were you able to do anything about this? Well?

985
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:56,480
Speaker 1: I did. I'm back in February. I asked the city

986
00:55:56,520 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 1: to implement an emergency supplemental budget to create a fentinale

987
00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:05,800
Speaker 1: task force that could both provide some staff to my office,

988
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:10,120
Speaker 1: but more importantly resources to our public health partners, because

989
00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 1: we saw the ongoing horrific toll of human lives being

990
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 1: lost overdoses, and we saw that the tools we had

991
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,719
Speaker 1: were totally impotent to address it. And so yes, we

992
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 1: asked the city to introduce a supplemental emergency budget to

993
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 1: create a fentinal task force, and um, we didn't even

994
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: get a response from city Hall. You know, this makes

995
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:35,240
Speaker 1: me think about a coordinator approach that emerged in Europe

996
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, when you really saw harm reduction advancing

997
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 1: at the municipal level, even in cities that were run

998
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 1: by conservative politicians, And in Frankfurt was a good model

999
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:46,840
Speaker 1: where you had a major problem with the drug related

1000
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:49,239
Speaker 1: street crime and drug related hiv A s and all

1001
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: these sorts of things, not unlike what you're seeing in

1002
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: San Francisco. And the mayor convened what he or she

1003
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:59,279
Speaker 1: called the Monday Morning meeting, where the head of prosecution

1004
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 1: and the head of the ops, head of housing, head

1005
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: of social welfare, they all were there to kind of

1006
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:06,879
Speaker 1: we deal collectively with how to deal with a multi

1007
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: dimensional drug problem. And I wonder, was this something that

1008
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,719
Speaker 1: was happening in San Francisco that Mayor Breed was orchestrating. Yeah,

1009
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 1: I have no I mean, I have no information suggesting

1010
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 1: that that kind of a meeting occurred. It may have occurred,

1011
00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 1: but um, you know, they were very happy to blame

1012
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 1: me in the District Attorney's office for the problems and

1013
00:57:22,600 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 1: then exclude us from conversations about solutions, if in fact

1014
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: there were conversations at all being had. You know, it

1015
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 1: strikes me that in some of the cities where the

1016
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: progressive prosecutors taking a lot of flak, a lot of

1017
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 1: times it's really an issue involving the police more than

1018
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 1: it is the prosecutors, and I think about what happened,

1019
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: say in Baltimore after Freddie Gray died, where you had,

1020
00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 1: you know, the police basically saying fuck it. You know,

1021
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: we're just not gonna put ourselves out there anymore. We're

1022
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: not going to come down and respond to crimes the

1023
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:56,200
Speaker 1: way we did before. And I wondered, I mean, did

1024
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 1: you have the same sort of phenomena that happened in

1025
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Absolutely, we heard stories every single day of

1026
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 1: police officers responding to the scene of a crime and

1027
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:07,440
Speaker 1: talking to a victim and saying to the victim, gosh,

1028
00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,960
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry this happened you. I wish we could help,

1029
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: but you know, this just won't prosecute, and then doing

1030
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 1: zero follow up investigation. And the data is really telling

1031
00:58:17,880 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 1: if you look at if you just compare this is

1032
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:24,480
Speaker 1: using police department data, their own statistics, the rate at

1033
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 1: which they solved or cleared cases in the first half

1034
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:31,280
Speaker 1: of two during the final months the recall, and you

1035
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 1: compare that with the first half of the year before

1036
00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: I was the district attorney, the rate at which they

1037
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 1: solved every single category of crime they report data and

1038
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:44,720
Speaker 1: fell by high double digits. In fact, the category of

1039
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: crime where there police arrest rate fell. The least was

1040
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 1: assaults and that fell by. On the other end of

1041
00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: the spectrum, you've got things like arson, where the rate

1042
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 1: at which police solve those crimes fell by, and it

1043
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 1: was frustrating to see that. UM I had a good

1044
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: working relationship with the police chief, but I don't believe

1045
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: that he controls the department. I don't believe that any

1046
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 1: police chief controls the department in San Francisco. I think

1047
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,800
Speaker 1: the police union controls the department in San Francisco. With

1048
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 1: the recall, once you lost. The next morning, I remember

1049
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 1: the New York Times, the national media coverage. It was

1050
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 1: all about this show is a major transformation and public opinion,

1051
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:27,600
Speaker 1: you know, public turning against progressive prosecutors. There was a

1052
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:30,920
Speaker 1: piece by Alec Kara katsan As. He's the founder and

1053
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:35,200
Speaker 1: executive director of Civil Rights Corps UM and he critiqued

1054
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 1: this front page story in the New York Times basically

1055
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: saying it's bullshit. There is no massive wave against progressive prosecutors.

1056
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,000
Speaker 1: In fact, if you look around the state, if you

1057
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: look at the race that the Attorney general was in, Robonta,

1058
00:59:48,880 --> 00:59:50,400
Speaker 1: who is a progressive if you look at the d

1059
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: a's races and Alameda and Contra Acosta counties, um, if

1060
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,640
Speaker 1: you look at other cities that basically the notion that

1061
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:00,920
Speaker 1: San Francisco voters were sending a message that was common

1062
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 1: around the rest of the country was basically bullshit. What

1063
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:08,800
Speaker 1: do you think? No I would agree? And you know,

1064
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 1: the the the irony and the dishonesty and the way

1065
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 1: that the media coverage, I mean it, pundits went such

1066
01:00:13,640 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 1: a rush to have some sort of national lesson learned

1067
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 1: from my recall, which was a tremendously unique in many

1068
01:00:20,160 --> 01:00:22,880
Speaker 1: ways to a generous kind of a race that's one

1069
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: of a kind that's not reflective. It wasn't a head

1070
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:28,480
Speaker 1: to head where a you know, a Republican traditional prosecutor

1071
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 1: was running against a Democratic reform minded prosecutor. It was,

1072
01:00:33,720 --> 01:00:35,240
Speaker 1: as I said, a race where it was a yes

1073
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: or no vote on me. After a two and a

1074
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: half year period in which we lived through a global pandemic,

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01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 1: we'd uh seen the police department systematically refused to investigate cases,

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01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:48,240
Speaker 1: and in which a Republican group of largely Republican funders

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01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:51,919
Speaker 1: had spent over seven million dollars in attack ads that's

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01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: what it was. It wasn't a head to head, it

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01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:57,040
Speaker 1: wasn't a traditional election. And then a few weeks later

1080
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:02,560
Speaker 1: when Steve Mulroy in Shell County, Memphis, Tennessee, wins a

1081
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:09,520
Speaker 1: Democrat reformer out an incumbent traditional right wing Republican prosecutor

1082
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: who had been the d A for something like eight years,

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01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:14,440
Speaker 1: no mention of it in any of the national media.

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01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 1: He won in a landslide against a very traditional police

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01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 1: union back UM old Guard prosecutor. And so you know,

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01:01:23,720 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 1: it's clear that there's a desire for whatever reason, maybe

1087
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:31,040
Speaker 1: it sells papers, I don't know from many in in

1088
01:01:31,160 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 1: mainstream media sources to um to undermine the criminal justice

1089
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:40,400
Speaker 1: reform movement in this way and to to to amplify

1090
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: attacks and criticisms, to blame high profile crimes on criminal

1091
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 1: justice reform in ways that they never ever do in

1092
01:01:48,720 --> 01:01:52,680
Speaker 1: jurisdictions where you know, we have more traditional punitive and

1093
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 1: carstral responses to crimes. I think the movement is growing

1094
01:01:57,400 --> 01:01:59,919
Speaker 1: in strengthening, and it's going to keep going for years

1095
01:01:59,920 --> 01:02:02,400
Speaker 1: to coming. It doesn't mean that, like any movement, it

1096
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: won't have setbacks. We will will have some high profile

1097
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 1: defeats and will continue to grow despite those defeats and setbacks.

1098
01:02:10,320 --> 01:02:13,320
Speaker 1: So thank you ever so much Chase for taking the

1099
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 1: time to be on Psychoactive. I admire your courage in

1100
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:19,480
Speaker 1: running for office. I admire the work you did accomplish

1101
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: while you were districtor in San Francisco, and I very

1102
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:24,760
Speaker 1: much hope that we and the voters of San Francisco

1103
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 1: will have another opportunity one day to put you back

1104
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 1: in office to continue the struggle. Thanks so much for

1105
01:02:30,360 --> 01:02:32,320
Speaker 1: your work, Ethan, then pleasure to be on the show.

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01:02:40,280 --> 01:02:44,120
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Psychoactive, please tell your friends about it,

1107
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 1: or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts

1108
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. We love to hear

1109
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 1: from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories,

1110
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:55,720
Speaker 1: comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one

1111
01:02:55,960 --> 01:03:01,439
Speaker 1: eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three

1112
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:06,040
Speaker 1: three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive

1113
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:09,240
Speaker 1: at protozoa dot com, or find me on Twitter at

1114
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: Ethan natal Man. You can also find contact information in

1115
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:16,160
Speaker 1: our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart

1116
01:03:16,280 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 1: Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by me Ethan Nadelman.

1117
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 1: It's produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain. The executive

1118
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:28,600
Speaker 1: producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren

1119
01:03:28,600 --> 01:03:32,360
Speaker 1: Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from

1120
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio and me Ethan Naedelman. Our music is

1121
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:40,240
Speaker 1: by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to ab brios f,

1122
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:54,840
Speaker 1: Bianca Grimshaw and Robert BB. Next week I'll be talking

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01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 1: with Professor Nancy Campbell, one of America's leading drugs scholars,

1124
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 1: who co authored a book called The Narcotic Farm about

1125
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: a remarkable institution that simultaneously punished, treated, and researched drug addicts.

1126
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:14,440
Speaker 1: The Narcotic Farm was an attempt to separate out people

1127
01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:20,760
Speaker 1: whose sole problem was drug addiction, narcotic addiction, and narcotics

1128
01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:22,919
Speaker 1: was a catch all term at that time that did

1129
01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 1: refer to both opiates and cocaine, which is a little

1130
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 1: bit hard for us to understand because they are drugs

1131
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:33,800
Speaker 1: that do very different things have very different effects. However,

1132
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:40,400
Speaker 1: it was basically um what became the illicit market. Subscribe

1133
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:42,280
Speaker 1: to Cycleactive now see it. Don't miss it