By Emilio Garcia-Ruiz :sfchronicle – excerpt
When I started as editor in chief in September 2020, the pandemic lockdown was in full force and the streets around The Chronicle’s downtown offices were strikingly dystopian.
Like many newcomers, I asked about all the signs of drug addiction I was seeing on my daily walk to work. More than one person, as part of a casual conversation, told me that drugs in San Francisco are sold by migrants from Honduras who are victims of human trafficking and forced to sell on the streets of the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods.
Has anyone written that story? I asked.
It would be very difficult to get, I was told. Obviously, investigating a drug network is hard enough for police, much less journalists…
Despite concerns about their safety and the threat of contracting COVID, the two spent hundreds of hours in the open-air drug markets in the Tenderloin and SoMa over these past 18 months. They watched how the business was done, interacting with everyone they could: dealers, users, residents, community activists and the police…(more)
Megan Cassidy and Gabrielle Lurie should be commended for putting so much effort into this investigation that resulted in multiple storites that document the characters and their work that produces what we are seeing on the streets of San Francisco. One may choose to belive it or not, act on it or not, but the work to inform the public has been done and it is an amazing story. The issues are immense and complicated, but, if we are going to solve the problems we must understand the situaltion we are dealing with, and the work Megan and Gabrielle did gives us a lot to work with. Our sincere thanks. (read the articles and you will see what I mean)