On August 22, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill (SB) 57, which would’ve opened the door to legal drug dens in Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He clearly felt the pressure not to allow further expansion of the drug culture. This included from State Assembly candidate Mindy Pechenuk who is running against State Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, one of the co-sponsors of SB57.
Some argue that lives would’ve been saved by establishing these “safe injection sites.” But think about it! How have we gotten to where more than 100,000 people die every year from drug overdoses? In the early 1980s it was 2,500/year. Losing twenty-five hundred souls in a year to drugs is terrible, plus the agony the families and friends go through. But 100,000! Why are people not sounding alarms from the rooftops? How have we become so complacent?
Over the last fifty years, as we, bit by bit, liberalized our drug policies, making it easier and more acceptable to use drugs, we were also shutting down our manufacturing economy, and winding down frontier areas like space development. We created a low-skilled, low-wage underclass, with little hope for the future. Is it a wonder that we now have a drug problem? I applaud the efforts that stopped SB57, but we have a much bigger job to do. We must urgently address the fundamentals that have undermined our society for half a century. I’m supporting Mindy Pechenuk for the Assembly as someone who shares these concerns and will not tolerate the continued ruin of California.