The cost of doing drugs on San Francisco streets just got a little higher.
On February 17, Mayor Daniel Lurie signed legislation advancing the new Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage (RESET) Center, which is slated to open this spring. Police will be directed to arrest people for public drug use or intoxication and take them to RESET for evaluation. Arrestees will be kept at RESET for a 24-hour period and given the option to connect with treatment.
The RESET facility will be overseen by the Sheriff's Office and the city's Department of Public Health.
"What we are looking for is putting them in a therapeutic healthy environment for them to start the beginnings of sobriety by sobering up and coming off the drugs, and having them come out of the system in the presence of health care professionals," San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto told ABC 7.
Open-air drug use has been a persistent problem in San Francisco. Public drug use and public intoxication are already illegal, but enforcement of the law has been lax in San Francisco until now. Lurie, a political moderate, was elected in 2024 on a promise to clean up the city and crack down on public use and sales of narcotics.
“For too long, San Franciscans have been told that we must choose between clean, safe neighborhoods and compassion for those struggling on our streets. The RESET Center allows our officers to arrest those using drugs in public at a speed and volume we have never seen before. And with this new resource, we will also give those suffering from addiction a real chance to choose recovery,” Lurie said. “This center is the next step in our Breaking the Cycle plan to fundamentally transform San Francisco’s response to addiction and homelessness. Thank you to Supervisor Dorsey, the Sheriff’s Office, and the Department of Public Health for their support of this effort.”
“I consider the RESET pilot to be the single most important policy shift in San Francisco since the advent of the fentanyl crisis, and I applaud Mayor Lurie for implementing this much-needed change and for identifying a partner of Connections Health Solutions’ caliber to help operate it,” said District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who voted in favor of the legislation.
“By offering a compassionate alternative to incarceration, the RESET Center is a vital part of our efforts to help people move from the streets and connect them into treatment and recovery,” added San Francisco Director of Public Health Dan Tsai. “It strengthens our ability to provide a timely, effective intervention that allows individuals to recuperate safely while addressing their health needs more effectively in a setting that is not jail.”
The RESET Center’s advancement comes at a critical time. Recent figures show a troubling spike in overdose deaths in January. There were 53 fatal overdoses that month. That’s the highest number of monthly deaths since May of 2025, though it is still lower compared to January 2024 and 2025.