Monday, May 9, 2022

Rural California county threatens to sue San Francisco over fentanyl crisis

The story in the Eureka Times-Standard last week was headlined, "Humboldt County supes call out SF DA over local fentanyl ODs."  Sonia Waraich reports out of the county seat of Humboldt County, population 136,463, in far northern California: 

Humboldt County recorded about three dozen fentanyl deaths last year and the county supervisors say it’s San Francisco’s fault.

On Tuesday, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors unanimously decided to send a letter to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin demanding he start prosecuting drug dealers. The letter states his failure to do so has led to the ” ‘open air dealing’ of drugs in the Tenderloin area” and an outflow of fentanyl to communities like Humboldt County, where people are dying of overdoses.

“Is this a shot across the bow,” said 1st District Supervisor Rex Bohn. “Yeah.”

Humboldt County had 35 confirmed fentanyl overdose deaths last year. According to the letter, the Humboldt County Drug Task Force followed suspected drug dealers to the Tenderloin in San Francisco, where they observed them purchasing fentanyl that they then attempted to bring back to the county.
“In fact, four people were arrested on April 25, 2022, as they entered Humboldt County after they had purchased fentanyl from the Tenderloin District,” the letter states.

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson pushed back on the idea all of the fentanyl in Humboldt County was coming from San Francisco, along with other issues with the letter, though he ultimately voted in favor of sending the letter.

Reminds me a bit of this post from nearly a decade ago, when a nonmetro county in Arkansas told a metro county 80 miles away to mind its own business.  

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