San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities

by Michael Shellenberger

“Being high on meth looks just like bipolar mania,” explained a former psychiatric emergency room doctor. Half of all patients whom he saw at San Francisco General Hospital had both severe mental illness and drug addiction. “Things like methamphetamine and cocaine stimulants will make you psychotic, and so it looks just like bipolar mania,” he said. “I mean, it’s indistinguishable.”93 Said Kruger, “You probably figured out that folks who are substance abusers are folks who have mental illness and they end up in crisis. In the emergency department they’ll say, ‘He’s a speeder.’ He’ll be psychotic but labeled a speeder because he’s doing meth. The Mental Health Department says, ‘We don’t have to deal with him because he’s on meth.’ But you still need to deal with him.”