Gavin Newsom’s Disingenuous Boast on California Drug Policy

Gavin Newsom wants you to know he cares deeply about America’s overdose crisis. In an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle last weekend, the California governor squarely placed the blame on the Trump administration for “abandon[ing] American families just as the country was making headway in our fight against the overdose epidemic.” But, he maintains, “where Washington retreats, California has stepped up.”

To fully grasp the audacity of this claim, you need only look at where this man cut his teeth. San Francisco, where Newsom served as mayor from 2004 to 2011, became the most visible drug disaster in the developed world. Not despite his politics — because of them. The Tenderloin became an open-air pharmacy. U.N. Plaza became unwalkable. The philosophy his administration embedded — harm reduction as an end in itself, accountability as an afterthought — metastasized into city policy and became its own kind of trap. It was too entrenched to challenge, too politically sacred to dismantle. Other mayors inherited the wreckage, but Newsom laid the foundation. He then left for Sacramento, where the problems were bigger, the podiums better, and accountability remained equally optional.

About the Author

John Mac Ghlionn

John Mac Ghlionn is a psychosocial researcher and essayist whose writing has appeared in a variety of publications.

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Gavin Newsom wants you to know he cares deeply about America’s overdose crisis. In an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle last weekend, the California governor squarely placed the blame on the Trump administration for “abandon[ing] American families just as the country was making headway in our fight against the overdose epidemic.” But, he maintains, “where Washington retreats, California has stepped up.”

To fully grasp the audacity of this claim, you need only look at where this man cut his teeth. San Francisco, where Newsom served as mayor from 2004 to 2011, became the most visible drug disaster in the developed world. Not despite his politics — because of them. The Tenderloin became an open-air pharmacy. U.N. Plaza became unwalkable. The philosophy his administration embedded — harm reduction as an end in itself, accountability as an afterthought — metastasized into city policy and became its own kind of trap. It was too entrenched to challenge, too politically sacred to dismantle. Other mayors inherited the wreckage, but Newsom laid the foundation. He then left for Sacramento, where the problems were bigger, the podiums better, and accountability remained equally optional.