{"id":767343,"date":"2026-05-02T03:39:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T03:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/767343\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T03:39:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T03:39:54","slug":"no-one-knows-what-s-f-s-new-drug-reset-center-will-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/767343\/","title":{"rendered":"No one knows what S.F.\u2019s new drug RESET center will do\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Comic<\/a><\/p>\n

Read Mission Local often?<\/p>\n

Help grow our newsroom<\/strong>, joining the 3,250 readers who support us by giving below.<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s new 24-hour drunk tank, known as the \u201cRapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage\u201d center, is set to open on Monday, but confusion remains over how it will operate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mission Local received conflicting opinions about whether people will be arrested and brought to the $14 million warehouse space on Sixth Street, whether patients there will be free to leave, and whether they will be able to access medication there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Addressing street conditions has been a key goal<\/a> of Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s administration, and the RESET center\u2019s backers have touted it as an alternative to jail or hospitalization for people who are picked up by police while publicly intoxicated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mission<\/p>\n

Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter<\/strong> below.<\/p>\n

Initially, the facility will only host people from District 6, which includes the South of Market neighborhood.<\/p>\n

But on the eve of the facility\u2019s opening, concerns about the center\u2019s legality, and confusion around just how it will work, remain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Wednesday prior to the site\u2019s opening, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto and his staff, representatives of Connections Health Solutions which will operate the facility, Mayor Daniel Lurie and Department of Public Health Director Daniel Tsai offered differing ideas on the basics of how the RESET center will operate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even the furniture became a point of contention. Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s office calls the 25 spots in the facility \u201cbeds,\u201d while Miyamoto and representatives of Connections called them chairs. Mission Local tested one out during a tour of the facility; they were cushioned and reclining, but chairs nonetheless.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are you being arrested?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lurie\u2019s initial announcement of the center in January stated that individuals would be \u201cplaced under arrest\u201d and transported to the facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Sheriff Miyamoto echoed this: \u201cThey are being arrested, they are being detained, they are being brought in and compelled to come to this facility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Moments later, his chief attorney, Rani Singh, said the opposite to Mission Local. \u201cWe actually have probable cause to arrest, [but] we\u2019re not arresting them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

People will be compelled to the center but will not be \u201cbooked\u201d in jail, officials said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ASurveillance camera views from the office that oversees the RESET center. Photo by Eleni Balakrishnan.<\/p>\n

Lurie also seems to have changed his stance in recent months. Asked on Wednesday about city leaders\u2019 resistance to using the word \u201cdetention,\u201d he countered: \u201cIt\u2019s a reset. That\u2019s our one word.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are you being detained?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Singh, like Miyamoto, said on Wednesday that those taken to the facility would be detained there,\u00a0though they disagreed on the length of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Connections Health Solutions\u2019 chief medical officer Holly DuBois, on the other hand, seemed to disagree altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a place to change course, not a place to detain,\u201d DuBois said on Wednesday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is the site a detention facility?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A city attorney memo<\/a> obtained by Mission Local in February flagged a \u201chigh risk\u201d that a court would find the site to be a \u201cdetention facility\u201d which, by state law, would be required to meet certain standards that the center currently does not appear to meet, like providing healthcare and food.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Miyamoto and Lurie skirted repeated questions on this memo and potential repercussions of not meeting detention facility standards, sheriff\u2019s spokesperson Tara Moriarty called the city attorney\u2019s finding plainly \u201cinaccurate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not classified as a detention facility. It\u2019s classified as a sobering center,\u201d Moriarty said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Singh, meanwhile, suggested any legal issues could eventually be won in court. Singh said she \u201cdid the research\u201d with the city attorney\u2019s office on the memo, and pointed to a past court decision in favor of the sheriff\u2019s department as an example of what might happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Can people leave?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Miyamoto said that people brought to the facility would be assessed as they sobered up, and if they are deemed able to take care of themselves, they would be \u201creleased from our custody,\u201d typically within four to eight hours.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked by Mission Local whether they could leave prior to that assessment and release, Miyamoto responded definitively: \u201cNo, they cannot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked separately when people would be let go, Lurie echoed the four to eight hours timeframe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moments later, Singh contradicted that claim, and said people could \u201ctechnically\u201d walk out of the facility immediately after intake, if they chose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re up and say, \u2018You know what, I\u2019m really actually okay\u2019 \u2014 nobody\u2019s going to stop them,\u201d Singh said. \u201cNo one\u2019s ever said anything different. And that has been my position from day one. So when you say people are saying different things, I don\u2019t know who those people are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will there be prescription medication available?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Public health director Tsai said that a \u201cworkflow\u201d was set up to prescribe buprenorphine \u201cvery, very rapidly\u201d to clients at the RESET center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But representatives of Connections Health Solutions seemed less certain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPotentially someone could bring it here,\u201d said Medical Director Kyle Jasper. He said that the facility will have over-the-counter medication at the ready, but prescriptions would happen elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unsure, Jasper went to ask a colleague to confirm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That colleague said Connections could \u201cget them started\u201d on calling in a prescription, and an outside entity could bring in a prescription to the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, there\u2019s not a lot of options for us to have it started here,\u201d said the colleague. \u201cSo it\u2019s more of the coordination and pathway to get them started, get them to the pharmacy, and get them into a community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, if the RESET center is deemed a detention facility, it would be required to provide adequate medical care, including detoxification treatment, according to the city attorney\u2019s assessment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For now, everyone will have to wait and see, including the sheriff\u2019s department.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil this practically comes into play, you can\u2019t understand what legal risk is,\u201d Singh said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

3,300 readers keep Mission Local free. Will you join them?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are no paywalls at Mission Local. We believe San Francisco deserves critical, high-impact reporting that belongs to all its residents, not just those who can afford it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But free to read doesn\u2019t mean free to produce. We\u2019re a small, independent newsroom rooted in San Francisco\u2019s communities that only exists because people like you invest in the reporting that our city relies on all year round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Keep Mission Local free for all by becoming a donor today.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read Mission Local often? Help grow our newsroom, joining the 3,250 readers who support us by giving below.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":767344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[4219,1230,210,1141,1142,150919,55181,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-767343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-crime","tag-drugs","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-soma","tag-tenderloin","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116502910107133288","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}