© Shannon Gafford/YoutubeGafford said he has repeatedly complained to BART authorities but nothing has been done to clean up the station
A shocking video has gone viral calling attention to what's going on in one of the busiest San Francisco BART metro stations.
Junkies and addicts are blatantly shooting up out in the open as morning commuters walk by.
Other drug addicts are slumped along filthy corridors.
Here is the full report from KPIX NEWS CBS SF Bay Area...
Twitter headquarters are located next to this metro station, employing dozens of millionaires and six figure liberal techies.
Are these the "exceptional values" so often bragged about by US Presidents, politicians and media talking heads?
Compare the SF Metro with the Moscow Metro...
Which transit system would you rather take to work?
Dictionary dot com defines 'Junkie' exactly as one would guess: "junkie": definition, a drug addict, especially one addicted to heroin." [Link] (As I recall, it dates back to the US Jazz era, where heroin's street name was 'junk.'*) That is pure semantic redundancy merely to describe something as sounding worse by calling what's been seen two words which sound bad but mean the same thing. Sadly, it's perfectly typical of any conventional / status-quo favoring website.
2. I'm confident that the vast majority of people "hanging out" at the SF Station, are doing so simply because they are homeless, not because they are necessarily "Junkies AND Heroin Addicts"
3. "Our Drug War' as the direct and planned cause of the situation seen in S.F.
As to the causes behind this situation, think about this:If heroin were simple legalized and taxed, the cost would go down to the point that people could afford to buy it, as they do right now with liquor or cigarettes** and then they would be far more likely to be able to rent someplace, and that's the real problem.
Sure, some folks are shooting up there, but don't you think that if they had a home, they'd be far, far less likely to shoot up in public?
Note that they'd also be far far less likely to reuse needles? (Think of the medical and social costs that would be saved just from that, as rates of Hepatitis, HIV, septicemia, et al. would drop precipitously.)
Realize that people began shooting up because of the tenfold (and greater) price increases in drugs that accompanies their unconstitutionally being made illegal.
The Prohibition Amendment revealed that the US government agreed that Constitution meant that it could no, prohibit the right of a competent individual, to possess and ingest whatever they might wish, for their own purposes, be they for health, hedonism, simple pleasure, or no reason at all. (You remember the Constitution and BOR's words and meanings:“That the government could not, without evidence 'beyond a reasonable doubt' harm or prevent citizens the right to own property, and control one’s own "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness.”)
Remember that both Heroin and cocaine were legal 'over the counter' medications in America up until around 1925 and thereafter. (Likewise, LSD was unconstitutionally made illegal around 1966. Dexedrine, (speed) was legally sold OTC up through ~1970? when Nixon and his fellow scumbags came up with their mega metastasization of 'our' drug war (with its permanent institutions and costs) to distract Nixon's problems with Vietnam being likely to sink his 1972 campaign, and Watergate that came along with all that.
That which governs least, governs best. Those who 'favor' certain drugs as candidates for illegalization ought to get oujt and try to pass a constitutional Amendment.
R.C.
* (After I wrote that, I also came across this "Junk" is first attested 1925; "junkie" is first attested 1923.” which I take ‘attested’ to mean the earliest documented usage found.) [Link]
RC