Today is Tuesday, February the 6th, 2024. Welcome to the Daily Article podcast. Today's article is written by

Dr. Jim Denison and narrated by Chris Elkins of the Denison Forum. San Francisco is on the front

pages this week as the 49ers seek to win their sixth Super Bowl this Sunday.

But the city is making news for tragic reasons as well.

The San Francisco Chronicle headlines.

San Francisco's street horror only grows as drug overdose number spike.

CNN reports.

Drugs are sold out in the open in San Francisco's Tenderloin District.

The New York Post adds, inside of San Francisco's dens of death, as liberal city faces drug crisis.

And this from CNN. A mother was raising her son in the city she loved, then San Francisco changed and stole her boy.

Drug addicts now outnumber high school students in the city.

In an area, a short walk from Union Square, the city's central shopping district, CNN reports that,

quote, it's commonplace to see people using and selling drugs. Human waste,

used needles, and bullet casings litter the sidewalks, end quote. What's going on in San Francisco?

And why does it matter to the rest of us? In 2018, the drug overdose death rate in San Francisco

roughly matched the national average.

Five years later, it was more than double the national level. Why? New York Times reporter

German Lopez explains, the San Francisco culture has become more tolerant of people using drugs.

When I ask people living on the streets why they're in San Francisco,

the most common response was that they knew they could avoid the legal and social penalties

that often follow addiction.

Some came from as close as Oakland, believing that San Francisco was more permissive.

...