This event was part of a larger celebration marking 20 years of the San Francisco-Zurich sister city partnership.
SFZH (the San Francisco-Zurich Sister City Committee) a dynamic, local nonprofit organization connecting the vibrant cities of San Francisco and Zurich, spearheaded this collaborative initiative that brought together renowned public health and drug policy experts from both cities.
In the 1990s, Zurich gained notoriety as the epicenter of Europe’s largest open drug scene. However, a pivotal and historic paradigm shift towards harm reduction heralded a transformation in Zurich’s drug policy, echoing across Switzerland, effectively curbing overdose fatalities. Presently, San Francisco grapples with a strikingly analogous challenge.
Offering a platform for the exchange of knowledge between experts and practitioners from both cities, this event hosted two panels in San Francisco’s Mission District with the aim of jointly discussing various aspects of drug policy. Both panels, moderated by Dr. Larissa J. Maier, were made up of professionals who are confronted with the consequences of drug use on a daily basis as part of their work. The first panel consisted of experts from Zurich and the second one of professionals from San Francisco. This exchange opened up an interesting and thought-provoking discussion on the approaches taken by the local governments to tackle the drug issues in both cities and uncovered the sometimes very different circumstances they face. For example, the type of drugs prevalent in San Francisco today differs from the drugs that circulated in Zurich’s open drug scene in the 1980’s and 1990’s. It is thanks to these differing measures taken by authorities and organizations in both cities that this discussion allowed for a careful evaluation of the approaches and identification of potential areas for improvement.
The panelists visiting from Switzerland – all of them experts in the fields of social welfare, public health, or law enforcement – presented Zurich’s approach to tackling drug issues, as well as their respective areas of responsibility within the city’s comprehensive drug policy consisting of four pillars: prevention, therapy, harm reduction, and regulation. A point that stood out to the audience was the close cooperation and information exchange between the various authorities in the city of Zurich with the aim of finding a common solution to the increasing drug use and mitigating its consequences. However, this is not an easy task, as the experts underlined, and requires political will as well as the constant flow of information between all parties involved.
According to the experts from San Francisco, the cooperation between the various stakeholders is currently lacking here. To address the city’s drug issues, new solutions must be found and there must be a political will to try approaches that have proven successful elsewhere, the panelists noted.
In this respect, this event helped to promote and facilitate an exchange between experts from the sister cities on an important issue they both faced or are currently facing. After all, as the Zurich panel’s presentation made evident, close collaboration and sharing of experiences and information are important success factors in developing, implementing, and maintaining an effective drug policy.
Watch the presentations of the Zurich panel and the Q&A in full length below.
Zurich panel:
- • Andrea Weiss (Social Affairs Zurich)
- • Dr. Mehdi Safavi (Health Department Zurich)
- • Beat Rhyner (Police Department Zurich)
San Francisco panel:
- • Laura Thomas (SFAF Director of Harm Reduction Policy)
- • Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, MD MPH (UCSF Professor for Family Community Medicine)
- • Steve Adami, MPA (Executive Director, The Way Out – recovery-focused homeless initiative of The Salvation Army)
- • Cedric Akbar (Executive Director at Positive Directions Equals Change)
- • Maurice Byrd (Director of Training and Business Operations, The Harm Reduction Therapy Center)
Moderated by Dr. Larissa J. Maier (Drug Policy Researcher)
This event was part of a larger celebration marking 20 years of the San Francisco-Zurich sister city partnership. Click here to discover the full range of our 20th anniversary events.
