San Francisco to test welfare recipients for drug use

SAN FRANCISCO is expected to start drug-testing welfare recipients amid “enormous” public frustration with crime levels and overdose deaths.

The city is famously progressive but is now thought to be heading “back to the centre”, as polling shows heavy public support for the testing.

Proposition F, which goes to a public ballot on Tuesday, would introduce drug tests for benefits claimants if they are “reasonably believed” to be dependent on illegal drugs.

Those who are stripped of state support will be provided with a housing stipend or provided with shelter for 30 days – an attempt to stop feeding the city’s growing homeless population.

A separate proposition on the ballot would expand police surveillance tools and reduce oversight of the force, the Wall Street Journal reports.

San Francisco is one of a number of cities along the West Coast that has moved towards more heavy-handed policies to end its public drug consumption and crime wave.

A recent poll conducted by the local Chamber of Commerce found six in 10 likely voters support the two ballot measures. Seven in 10 believe the city is on the wrong track.

“The measure politically reflects enormous frustration with the lack of progress in reducing drug problems in San Francisco,” Prof Keith Humphreys, a specialist in drug policy, told the newspaper. “This is something you normally associate with more conservative parts of the country.”

Republicans have long supported screening benefit claimants for drugs, which is law in more than a dozen states including Alabama and Arizona.

“The pendulum is swinging,” Malcolm Weitz, a 41-year-old who lives in the city and plans to support both measures, said. “It’s coming hard-core back to the centre".

London Breed, the Democratic mayor who faces an election challenge this year from candidates touting a “law and order” message, supports both propositions. She declared a state of emergency last year in the Tenderloin neighbourhood to stop its homeless population overdosing on its streets.

San Francisco saw a record number of drug overdoses last year, registering 806 deaths.