SAN FRANCISCO IS RULED BY DRUGS AND CORRUPTION SAY PARENTS

A mother's worst nightmare': San Francisco's multi-million dollar homeless industrial complex is a sham that profits off the misery of drug addicts like our children, write activist moms JACQUI BERLINN and GINA MCDONALD

By Jacqui Berlinn And Gina Mcdonald 

Feces, dirty needles, and tent encampments on the streets of the Tenderloin are part of it.

Children walked to school by hired guards, smash and grab crimes and loose fentanyl residue on sidewalks that can be licked by a dog or carried by the wind into a playground are part of it.

Drug dealers, armed with guns and machetes, standing in packs of dozens, openly selling fentanyl while police helplessly look on are part of it.

But the addicts — barely surviving, with clothes hanging off their shoulders showing open sores, pipes in their hands – are the most important part of the homeless industrial complex.

If the addicts were gone tomorrow this business would disappear, but apparently the powers that be don't want that to happen.

We are the co-founders of Mothers Against Drug Deaths (MADD) and we say: Enough!

We've seen with our own eyes what's happening in San Francisco, because we're on the streets, talking with the street-people, protesting against the drug dealers and searching for our loved ones.

This city is a mother's worst nightmare.

Our children (Sam, daughter of Gina and Corey, son of Jacqui) had seemingly normal young lives.

Sam attended private school, played volleyball and was a solid student.

She smoked pot in her teenage years and got hooked on heroin when she was 21-years-old after a bad breakup.

Corey played saxophone in the marching band. He's an avid reader and writer, who taught himself to play guitar.

He also used pot and alcohol in high school. He was convicted of a felony at 18-years-old for selling marijuana, then a girlfriend introduced him to heroin.

Both of them eventually got hooked on fentanyl, which is mixed with all sorts of drugs these days.

Today, Sam is in treatment outside of San Francisco.

Corey is still on the street.

He calls home every couple of weeks from a pay phone or when friends let him use their cellphones.

He's lost some of his teeth. He can't stand upright.

He was nearly killed when a drug dealer stabbed him in the chest and punctured his lung.

Another dealer hacked his hand with a machete, leaving him unable to use all his fingers.

We know our children made terrible choices, but we will not give up on them. A mother's love knows no bounds.

That's why we were hopeful when San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared an emergency in the Tenderloin.

She promised to address the overdose and addiction crisis that is killing more than two people a day in the city.

But 90 days later, she declared an end to the emergency, and unfortunately, they had made it worse.

Breed opened a so-called linkage center near United Nations plaza, where addicts can go to seek help and referral to treatment.

It was meant to be a refuge. It's not.

Attached to the center is an open-air drug consumption area, where addicts lie on the ground or slumped in plastic chairs all day.

They're provided all the tools necessary to continue using — needles, foil, pipes and more.

There are also drugs available.

Directly across the plaza is the largest open-air drug market in the city.

If you haven't seen it for yourself, it's hard to believe. At least 100 drug dealers standing in the bright sunshine – without any fear of police.

Anyone that knows anything about addiction would find this unfathomable.

Fentanyl withdrawal causes extreme dope sickness. That's what makes it so difficult for some addicts to quit.

Many addicts on the street, like Corey, don't even get high anymore. They just use to stave off the dope sickness.

But San Francisco has chosen to put its linkage center a stone's throw away from the dealers.

How is that supposed to help these desperate addicts quit?

It's a sick joke, and it's no surprise that it has been a complete and utter failure.

According to the city's own records, which we have compiled, out of 23,000-plus visits to the linkage center since it opened in December, only 18 people have received medical treatment for substance abuse or have been successfully referred to rehab. And we don't even know if those 18 people are clean today, because there's no way to track them.

For their part, the city wants to open more drug consumptions sites, even though it is plain to us that they're not working.

The linkage center at the United Nations plaza cost at least $10 million (we've heard the project cost as much as $19 million).

The staff at the linkage center are provided by a network of non-profits, including organizations called HealthRIGHT 360 and Urban Alchemy.

At this point we must ask: Who is this multi-million dollar homeless industrial complex really serving? Because it's not serving the addicts.

We do what little we can to raise awareness over this insanity.

We protest against drug dealers in the city – holding signs on the same corners where they stand.

We never feel completely safe.

The dealers give us the evil eye, or yell at us when they think we're using our phones to film them. But we're not going away.

We're actually more afraid of the politicians. They're the ones who will do anything. They say that we just want to throw everyone in jail, but it's not true.

Corey would be the first to tell you that San Francisco does not know how to help the addicts.

The city is enabling them. We want mandated treatment.

The city should be arresting people for stealing and using and dealing drugs. Then, they should give the addicts a choice: jail or treatment.

If Mayor Breed doesn't have enough police – then ask the state for help.

If there aren't enough beds in the hospitals – then open more.

If she isn't up to the job – she should step aside.

Corey once called San Francisco Pleasure Island. And it is — in every nightmarish way.

Except it's not just San Francisco's problem anymore. Corey and the other addicts are seeing new faces.

High schoolers are coming into the city on the train, buying fentanyl and taking it back home to the suburbs.

We are not just mothers, we're also grandmothers. We cannot allow this to continue and threaten another generation.

Last month, in another slap in the face of parents trying to save their kids, Breed flew off to Europe to promote San Francisco as a destination for foreign tourists.

She talked about the dropping of mask mandates and the Golden Gate bridge and our famous cable cars.

She didn't mention that Tenderloin.

We have a different message for European tourists. This is no place to bring your family.

Mothers Against Drug Deaths recently paid to put up a billboard in Union Square that reads: 'Famous for the world over for our brains, beauty and now dirt-cheap fentanyl.'

And sadly, that's the truth.