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The summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) starts on Saturday in San Francisco, California, where the two heavyweights of international politics, US President Joe Biden (80) and Chinese head of state Xi Jinping (70), will meet next week Meet.
Such a high-profile event is the ideal opportunity for any city to present itself on the international stage as a perfectly prepared and friendly host. Everything that could be annoying to visitors will be removed immediately.
This also happened in San Francisco. Because everything in the Golden City is no longer so golden. The metropolis with 800,000 inhabitants has been struggling with a real drug epidemic for years, mainly due to the rapid spread of the deadly drug fentanyl and the resulting homelessness.
The city government also realizes that such images do not show San Francisco in a good light. As the New York Post reports, homeless people were quickly moved to other parts of the city in the run-up to the APEC summit. Police focused mainly on the two neighborhoods of Tenderloin and South of Market, where homeless people have spread out in tent camps on the streets.
“They started clearing out the tents early this week and there is definitely a lot more police presence,” resident and activist Ricci Lee Wynne told the New York Post. The brutal efforts of the police made it clear to her that the city could actually tackle the problem all along. “Instead, they only do the bare minimum.”
For the activist it is clear: “Once the summit is over, the police presence will decrease again and the tents will return. It will slowly flare up again. What we need is a permanent solution.”
Wynne is not the only one concerned about the city government’s laissez-faire policy. Resident and store owner Adam Mesnick is also furious. He saw how temporary housing for the homeless had been set up in some hotels last week.
“They are simply pushing the problem forward, but not offering long-term solutions,” Mesnick said, referring to the city government. “They are very good at creating an illusion, but the measure is just a band-aid and an indication of bad governance.”
The drug and homeless problems have now become a serious problem for San Francisco. Numerous shops along the Market Street shopping street have already closed their doors. The tech industry is also considering exiting. “The emptiest city center in America,” wrote the New York Times in a report on San Francisco last year. (ced)
Fentanyl is an opium-like painkiller that is only used to treat severe chronic pain when no other medication can help. Because even minimal amounts can have an effect very quickly, fentanyl is most commonly used as a patch, nasal spray, or lozenge.
However, the drug is causing major problems on the drug market. The effects of fentanyl are similar to those of heroin – only 50 times stronger! Addicts boil the patches and inject the solution intravenously. The painkiller is also available on the black market as a powder that is sucked through the nose.
Regardless of the route: When used as a drug, addicts can hardly dose correctly, which often leads to death. In addition to the intoxicating and analgesic effects, there is a risk of respiratory depression in case of overdose. The breathing rate drops to less than ten breaths per minute – but the consumer doesn’t notice it.
There has been talk of an opium crisis in the US since the late 1990s. One in two of America’s 90,000 drug deaths in 2020 was due to fentanyl. Substances containing opium are also becoming an increasing problem in Switzerland. According to a study published by ETH in June 2022, there are hardly any figures on the illegal consumption of fentanyl. But the consumption of medically prescribed opioids such as oxycodone and fentanyl is also increasing in this country. And that has consequences: the number of emergency calls about opioid poisoning increased by a whopping 177 percent between 2000 and 2019, and sales of the addictive drug increased by 91 percent.
Fentanyl is an opium-like painkiller that is only used to treat severe chronic pain when no other medication can help. Because even minimal amounts can have an effect very quickly, fentanyl is most commonly used as a patch, nasal spray, or lozenge.
However, the drug is causing major problems on the drug market. The effects of fentanyl are similar to those of heroin – only 50 times stronger! Addicts boil the patches and inject the solution intravenously. The painkiller is also available on the black market as a powder that is sucked through the nose.
Regardless of the route: When used as a drug, addicts can hardly dose correctly, which often leads to death. In addition to the intoxicating and analgesic effects, there is a risk of respiratory depression in case of overdose. The breathing rate drops to less than ten breaths per minute – but the consumer doesn’t notice it.
There has been talk of an opium crisis in the US since the late 1990s. One in two of America’s 90,000 drug deaths in 2020 was due to fentanyl. Substances containing opium are also becoming an increasing problem in Switzerland. According to a study published by ETH in June 2022, there are hardly any figures on the illegal consumption of fentanyl. But the consumption of medically prescribed opioids such as oxycodone and fentanyl is also increasing in this country. And that has consequences: the number of emergency calls about opioid poisoning increased by a whopping 177 percent between 2000 and 2019, and sales of the addictive drug increased by 91 percent.
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
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