It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WVZ, Boston's news radio.
Thanks very much, Dan, As we move into the nine o'clock hour, here, just what everybody in this audience has heard of the phrase mass and casts Melina Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue. It has been known for years as an open air drug market, and the people who have to live in that community with the open air drug
market have not seen this go away. And reading a piece by Gayla Cowley in the Boston Herald this morning, residents are really concerned that it's been two years since the mayor rolled out a plan to clean up the troubled in intersection. But guess what, mass and cast just doesn't go away there. We've done shows on this, stories on this over the years, and with us tonight is a longtime South End resident, Brian McCarter. Brian, I wish
I could give you a solution here. The only thing I can give you is a great deal of sympathy, empathy or whatever. I can't imagine how this sort of an open air drug market would be allowed to continue in any other community. If this was in the Back Bay, it would be shut down. If it was in West Roxbury, it would be shut down. If it was in any suburb, it would be shut down. But for some reason, I think the powers that be have decided that hey, out of mind, out of sight, and let the people of
the South End deal with it. Welcome to Night's Side, Brian. How are you?
I'm thank you for having me on.
Yeah, and I want you to know that I'm I've watched this story evolve over years, and it just seems it's like a yo yo. It just always comes back. It just always comes back. You have a long term perspective there. You've lived in that part of the city now for nearly fifteen years. What is the city doing? Are they responding? I assume people must be complaining about it, because who wants that in your backyard?
Yeah?
In backyard, front yard, sideyard, your commute to your local grocery store, do your coffee shop, any part of your life you are confronted by the open air dark dealing.
Boy. This has to be debilitating. You don't want to give up in the neighborhood. Clearly you've been there for fourteen or fifteen years. Have you talked to the mayor, have you talked to the police, commissioner. Do they just have they done anything? Have they at least tried.
Yeah, I've talked with the mayor, I've talked with the police captain for the area, community service officers, and they all say it. You know, they're working on it, and you know, I believe that they're genuine, but at times it doesn't seem like it's a huge priority for the city.
And so you know, maybe they say they want to find a solution and get people into recovery and get people treatment, but you know, life on the ground doesn't really change much, and it's just frankly getting worse every week.
You know, yours is not the only part of the city that's dealing with crime. The more that I talk to people around Boston, I talk to people in West Roxbury, I'm told there's a supermarket in West Roxbury, one of the nicer sections of the city, where people are literally walking out the door with baskets full of food and they have to stop people. It's there's stuff going on
in Boston that that that we're not seeing. Those of us who no longer live in Boston, who may come into Boston to do some shopping, but you have to live with this described to the people who are listening tonight who live in the safe comfort of suburbia and who don't have to deal with this, explain what life is like for you in the South End vis a vis the drug dealers and the drug users.
Oh, it's it's terrifying. So just imagine if every day you're trying to come home and you have to check around a corner to see if you're going to get assaulted again, and you have to call nineer and one to clear the way in order to get anywhere. It's it's nothing else. There's no other place quite like this.
You know, you see examples in San Francisco and some other cities, but Boston it's it's not as many people that you know, as these other cities have, so uh, it's just all concentrated here in that you know, this part of Boston.
San Francisco has the Tackleoin. San Francisco has the Tenderloin district, and it's kind of spread out. Uh, that's that's a mess in San Francisco. But it almost seems like Boston did not heed the warnings or the example of San Francisco. They have tried, have they not down there to do something, but nothing has worked. They were they were going to open up a hotel and have a uh what do they call it? A low threshold hotel where people could could come and go as they want, use or not
use at whatever their pleasure is. And then they tried to move people. I think, if I'm not mistaken, they wanted to to move them to the Shadow Hospital near the Franklin Park Zoo. But that didn't seem to work. Everything they've tried hasn't worked. Is it is it that the the that they're not serious about it? Or do you think that the solution that have come up with are not what was needed to be done? Is it
a question of follow through? If you would become the commissioner of drug enforcement in Boston, there is no such thing, by the way, as far as I know, what would you advise? What would you suggest? What could be done?
So first you got to take into account some of the things that there's like two sets of plans, so to speak. There's the harm reduction plans and then there's the treatment first plans, and so they kind of have slightly different impacts. The hotel that you're talking about is the Roundhouse Hotel where It was exactly as you described. There was a harm reduction war threshold site. People could come and go as they wanted, and there was no obligation for them to try to get into treatment and
try to get into detox. They could just you know, continue to use drugs. That became a disaster in our area, crime everywhere, and no cost of fortune, and they got
very few people off of drugs. The I guess slightly more aggressive approach is what's called the treatment first, where you know you've kind of push people into medically assisted detox and longer term to have detox programs, and so that's a different set of plans, Like Senator Collins has one where we possibly convert a old cruise ship and then you know, have a three hundred bed detox facility so that we could possibly in bulk get people off of drugs and actually make a vent in this problem.
So what we've done in the past hasn't worked for clearly because we wouldn't be having this conversation, But some of the ways forward might look a little bit different than if the city were to get to the kind of leadership we need to do a plan like this and actually solve the problem it could be done.
Has the mayor ever said to you, look, Brian, you're a long time resident of the South End, why don't we schedule a meeting with some representatives of that area and let me hear from the from the the residents of the areas. There are there any meetings like that that ever occur where she would sit down.
Yeah, so I'm talking talk to Meriwu twice and that's caused, you know, an ongoing conversation that she herself needs to sit in on some of these meetings with self end leadership in order to have these conversations, you know, unfiltered, since that there clearly is a disconnect between what's happening on the ground and what the leadership is saying is supposed to be happening. Yeah, so that's been an evolving conversation for sure.
Okay, let's take a break here, Brian. I want to invite people to call and join the conversation, whether they're in South in the South End or they travel through the South End. This is not fair for one community, one section of Boston to deal with this as often you folks are just bearing the brunt of this. Uh.
And it's yeah, if you had twenty five to forty people in front of your place every day, you know, using needles, throwing them everywhere, and you know when people try to offer to help them, they swear at you, and you know they don't they don't want treatment. Yeah, it would be I don't know anyone who would want to tolerate this for particularly long spans of time.
No, I totally. I'm totally supportive and concerned. That's why we're having you on tonight. Let's and want to hear from as many people in Greater Boston, well in Boston specifically, but in Greater Boston as well. This is this is a situation that should not be tolerated by this great
American city. Six one seven, two five four, ten thirty or a couple of open lines at six one seven, nine three one ten thirty back on nights Side right after this, feel free join the conversation, particularly if you have some ideas. We'll be back on Nightside. It's Nightside with Dan Ray on.
Boston's news radio.
My guest is Brian McCarter, longtime South End resident, and we want to go to phone calls because it is just not fear that this beautiful section of Boston has to suffer all of the indignity of mass and Cass and the residents of Mass and Cass basically having invaded and set up shop in their neighborhood in what is an open ear drug market and has been four years. Let's go to Nicky in Boston. Nicky, welcome, You're next on Nightside, your first this hour.
Actually, go right ahead, Hi, Dan, how are you?
I'm doing just great? NICKI Are you in the South End per chance? Or no?
Oh?
I certainly am so. I own a small restaurant in the corner of Harrison Avenue and it's East Springfield Street, so it's a blame from mass av I've been there for seventeen years, so I have quite a few things to say.
Dan. Before you do that, let's give you a restaurant a plug, because maybe we could we could get some nightside listeners to stop by there this weekend. What's the name of the restaurant if you like?
So, the name is Blunch. It's breakfast for lunch or lunch for breakfast.
I like that.
Yeah, Okay, it's great, by the way.
Okay, thank you. This endorsement from Ryan. All right, so tell us about your experience go ahead.
So I've been there for seventeen years, almost eighteen actually, so I've seen the excursions of such. So in the beginning, it was prostitution in that area. So then when everything got built up towards like State Street where all the drug dealing was going on, and all the buildings were being pushed up, so all of that kind of just spread our way eventually within that seventeen years. So here we are seventeen years later, and there's there's nothing being done.
Like there's plans, there's statistics, there's senses, there's all kinds of everything going on, but there's no plan. There was a ten year plan that was ten years ago to help the area. We're saturated with every single city service in the whole Boston proper. So there's like five almost shelters, countless areas of social services. But the problem is it's not only the city's problem anymore. It's the state's problem. So here we are dealing with all politicians, every politician,
every part three one, one nine to one one. Every day, needle count I go out every day needle count I count I get people out of the restaurant. There's people on top of the restaurant. There's people breaking in constantly. It's it's it's crazy, it's it's not okay.
So here I got a question. I got a question for both you and Brian Nikki, I got a question for both you and Brian. If this situation mass and cast we're in one of the wealthier suburban communities. You can pick the name of the community, whether it's Wellesley or Westland okay, or or if it was in the back Bay or.
Square that happened. It's so it spread to back Bay and Beacon Hill and you know, in the span of three weeks they they cleared everyone out of Beacon Hill and Back Bay and sent them back to the South End.
So is that because the South End doesn't have the political power, doesn't have the people who can get the attention to the mayor. I mean, the bike lobby get the intention of mayor Woo and we have bike lanes everywhere. I mean, you know she does respond to constituents, is she? Why is she not responding to.
The South End?
She does?
Jeremy under these.
Okay, hold on, go ahead, and problem it's a huge problem. It's it's so much grander than what she is and what she can do and what three to one one can do and what nine to one one can do. It is what I'm reiterating a state's issue. These people are not coming, They're not they're not Boston people. These people are getting busted in from Worcester framing him all the surrounding areas because we in that small part of
the South End have everything for them. They can get their drugs, they can go to rehab, they can get a meal, they can stay at home. All in that little area we have all of that. That's a state's problem. It's not the city there will over her head in this.
So why is she not Why is she not going to Governor Heally and to the Attorney general, both of.
We haven't heard from her. Where is she? So I don't we don't know why she doesn't go to Marrow Heely and say, you know, go after Boston Public Health, which you know they're essentially funding to perpetuate this instead of get people off of drugs.
Okay, well, I think Nicky's point is well taken, But it would seem to me that, uh that a mayor of Boston who feels a section of his or her city is being overwhelmed by anything. I should go to the state and say, hey, we need your help here. If the police in Boston kan't, you know, regulate the activity there, then maybe she needs to ask for some state police to come in and back up the Boston police. I think that there are solutions if people want to
focus on the problem. I don't think they're willing to focus on the problem. Nikki and Briant, No, I'm.
Carry one of the neighborhood leaders asked in like a week ago to go to Governor Healy and the response.
I did as well. I did a couple of weeks ago in a coffee hour. I approached her right up. She's very receptive, but her hands are tied politically and financially. So it's time for this state to step up. And that's my point.
I get it. But it seems to me that that if her hands are tied as mayor, that her next option would be to go to the governor and say, look, I need some help. And whether it's state police, uh, you know, more police patrols. If you've got to have some National Guard people there, what's wrong with that? I mean, if if it's become an open air drug market.
It is, I mean it it is.
I just think that for Mayor Woo to say, well, it's just beyond me, Okay, if it's beyond you, what can you do? I mean, there has to be a solution for this, it seems to me. And I know I don't live in the South End, guys, I really don't, but I can't imagine how frustrated I would be if I was in your situation. And I can't tell you how much you know how much I appreciate the fact that that both of you would take the time to I have more phone calls, So Nicky, thank you, Thank
you for for being with us tonight. Feel free to join us any night. But we'll continue to focus on this problem for the people in the South End. I know the South End pretty well. I've had I've had relatives who who lived there. I've had friends who have lived there. And it's a shame that that part of the city, which forty years ago was really a wasteland, has come back. It's been gentrified, it's come back, but now it has to deal with mass and casts. Anyway, the big.
Thing Dan It's still a beautiful neighborhood and there's beautiful people and neighbors that care, and that's that's why we're here.
Well, and that's why I'm doing a show tonight. That's why I'm doing the.
Show, and I appreciate it. Sir, Thank thank you.
We'll talk again. Thank you very much, appreciate you. Okay, Brian and I want you to stay with us. We have other phone calls from not only in the city, but also outside the city. Feel free to join this conversation. One line open at six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty. It just filled back on Nightside right after.
This Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
We're talking about the mass and cass drug market. The open air drug market, which is played plagued this section of the city for years and years and years and nothing has been done about it. If you want to maybe there have been efforts made, but no results produced. Let's go next to Laura in Dorchester. Laura, thanks for calling Nightside. You're next on Nightside. My guest Brian McCarter.
Hi, I'm on speaker, is that okay?
I'd prefer you to be off speaker because we'll be able to hear you. I'm sure Rob might have mentioned that to you if you can. I don't want to lose you as a caller here, but we'll be able to understand what you're saying a lot more clearly.
Okay, decades in Dorchester, Okay, it was rough. It's still as rough. But the latest improvement here in near the Fields Corner area is since I contacted the newest community office, which is affiliated with Area Say Police. He's the newest. He's definitely not the person I spoke to six months ago. So I called him on our last issue. And everything's squeaky clean, everything's quiet. I can hear the police during the night. It's like almost making the rounds, just to
let everybody know that they hear. So this is highly residential. I know mass and Casts very well, and I know that's Boston City Hospital, that's healthcare for the homeless. I can't see any exact residential places, but off you know there are many in the South End. But cameras have helped us in the community officer just recently. He must be new and he doesn't sound like the old one. And I got from the desk officer at the police station his direct number. And for some reason, things are
taking care of very quickly and it's very quiet. That might be one option. Now in Dorchester and the Dorchester Reporter, there's a list of communities that once a month they have meetings and since COVID they've been on zoom usually.
So, Laura, this is interesting. But we've gone two minutes and twenty seconds here. How does this apply to the problem we're talking about Mass and cass Fields Corner is pretty good distance from Mass and Cass.
Well, you have the same problem. We're right on the train station, We're right on the red line we had.
So you have an opening drug market there.
Well, I wasn't exactly sure about the open drug market. I know that healthcare for the homeless medicates the homeless people. And now what I'm.
Trying to get at, Laura, and I think you probably have some valuable information. What can you tell my guest, Brian McCarter, What advice could you give him?
That the drug addicts and the people who were drugged were on our steps, we couldn't get into our homes. So is that an open drug market?
But what advice would you give to my guest? I've asked you the question three times. You're giving me a lot of interesting information. About Field's Corner. I know Field's Corner very well, played a lot of baseball games.
I went local police station. Okay, let's make get me the contact information of the community officer, so I would go to his local police station.
Okay, have you tried. Let's see if he's done that yet, Brian, have you have you reached out to the local police station.
So, uh yeah, many times I've got the direct emails of the police captain, the community service officer, and the supervisor above the police captain. So that is an avenue when we try to be partners with the police, since you know, it's an ever present part of our life here, and so we are in constant engagement with police leadership.
So I had no results. You wouldn't believe the other issue that was going on here with the homeless holding cas hostage and demanding money from them, and what I got from the previous community office that was, well, we can't do anything about panhandless. When I took the pitches of the people holding the cas hostage for seven months and demanding they give them twelve dollars eighteen dollars father drugs, I took it. We got a new community officer so obviously the previous community officer.
Well maybe yeah. I think you've been very lucky with the new community officer, and hopefully Brian, with this information you can find out who your community officer is. Laura, I appreciate your experience and I hope that it has really an effective application in the South End. I appreciate you, Carl Waura, thank you very much. Let me keep rolling here, going to go next to We're gonna go Mike in Norwood. Mike, you're next on Nightside. Go right ahead. You're on with
my guest, Brian McCarter. He lives in the South End. They're trying to deal with the mass and cast open air drug market. They're not getting much help out of the mayor's office, and I think we just he dropped off. So if Mike, who probably had us on speakerphone as well, and we lost him in the meantime, we're gonna go to another caller. Let me go to Patty in Wellesley. Patty you are well. You are next on Nightside. Welcome Patty.
Hi, Dan, I'm Brian.
How are you.
We're great?
Dan.
I will actually, Bryan, can I just say one thing? Do you think that Dan would be a great mayor of Boston.
Oh I don't know them well enough. I'd love that can heine to have this conversation. It'd be an interesting I never thought, never thought about it, so I'd have to circle back.
Well, I hadn't live in Boston, so I'm ineligible. I used to live in Boston. But I'll tell you what, if I was the mayor of Boston, that open had drug market would be out of business period.
That's exactly why I called okay, because I think you should get together with whoever and help them, because they need you to help them with that. Yes, and I think it would all go away and everyone will be happy ever after.
Well, I think you need the mayor to reach out to the governor, and the governor, if necessary, has to say to the state police get in there and help the bo If the Boston Police can't handle it, get the state beliee or maybe the National Guard in there. This is this is a disaster area for people who like who like Brian, are trying to live in a community that they have invested in. And uh, Patty, I appreciate your support. When I run for president, Patty, you're
going to be my campaign manager. Right, you know that.
Right, I'm going to get the biggest megaphone and I will like scream from the chipstop okay, and I will be in your ringside.
Yes, thank you, that's an honor.
Thanks, Patty, you have the best.
Thanks. Why next time we walk Mason Cast as a community? Uh, when we all get together and do that once a month, you should come?
Is it on the night side? Website this information? Because I I'm always the last to hear what's happening, Brian.
What I will do is the next time, Patty, what I'll do is the next time they have a an event, I will make sure that we get it up and posted and talked about. Brian will have to get me that information and we will circulate it. Okay, but I don't want you to go there alone. I want you to make sure that you have somebody with you. If it's going to have to be me, it's going to be me. Okay.
Oh, I will have a producer reach out and I'll email the information. I have it somewhere in my in box.
Okay, I'm serious, you guys. We need to do this because those people of math Casts are going to make more people and there's going to be.
It's just going to grow.
And it's going to be an epidemic and it's going to be terrible. So I think we've got to take a bite out of it, like sooner than later, don't you agree?
I think the next one's on the eighteen at seven pm inspection of math av and Albany Street. One of the one of the few bright spots in the city is a Combined Response Team. There's a five person team that's been doing miracles with only five people. So they show up about once a month walk the area with the neighborhood.
Yeah. The problem for me, that's a Wednesday. That's a Wednesday night, Patty, So I can't go that night because I have to do my show. But we'll we'll get something going.
Okay, Yes, thank you, John, you're my mind.
Don right back at you, Patty, Thank you much. Patty's a loyal listener and a great friend. Let me go to Lenny rather Larry. Excuse me. Larry is down on Old k Cod. Larry, I know that the problem is not just in the South End or a masson cast. But say hi to Brian McCarter. He's fighting it on the front.
Yeah, down there I'm familiar with the area. He used to live down there Madapan Square. But I used to take my daughter to the Reggie Lewis Center. All the state track meets for there. My son is on the Boston Police Department for twenty years. He started up in B two down in Roxbury. This is what he feels. The problem is all the sudden. The original the original attraction down there was all the social services, the methadone clinics there would go get drugged up. He was on
the vehicular homicide unit. They'd get drugged up, walk across the street, get run over by a car. The state closed up all of the hospitals number there used to be one down on Morton Street. They're all over the place. Whoever is running for governor needs to open up those places again and find places to take these people. I think once in a while the DPW goes down and clears out the tents that they don't enforce it, and
they just keep it going. But whoever's running for governor should get on this bandwagon and use this as one of their things that they're running on.
I think that's a great suggestion. Larry. And this, you know, when you have a democratic mayor, Democratic governor, Democratic attorney general and nothing has happened. You might as well drive the other party. You never know.
Yeah, whoever viable eventually handed it go ahead?
Please, Brian, I missed you've stepped on you.
Well, you say, whoever solves it would be a viable presidential candidate. You know, this is not an easy problem, and if you can solve it, I think they'd have a very long and prosperous career.
Yeah. Well, they've actually made some progress on this stuff in New York, believe it or not. Mayor Adams has a Democrats has made some progress in New York. But for some reason, as long as it kind of stays out of the public eye. And that's why I'm doing the show tonight with you, Brian, and I will come back and do it again with you at some point as well. I'm not going to leave you on this.
I'm a firm believer that there is a quote unquote quote of public opinion, and that's where we're practicing right now and making people aware that if it can happen to your neighborhood, it can happen to any neighborhood, and it's just not it's just not fear. Larry, I appreciate the perspective and tell your son to stay safe.
Okay, thank you, thank you.
January. Okay, Brian, I gotta take one final commercial break, and I have a bunch of callers we're going to get to. The only lines that are open are six one, seven nine. But I got Matt and Franklin, Bob and Cambridge and John in the South End. We'll get them all in. I promise all those three will be getting in, and if we get a couple more in six one, seven ninety. Coming back on Nightside. You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z, Boston's news radio. Back to the phones, we go, going to go to
Matt in Franklin, Massachusetts. Matt, you're on with Brian McCarter of the South End talking about mass and cast. Go ahead, Matt.
Yeah, I'm gonna say that Mayor WU cleaned up city hall plods over the past year or two. They used to be scattered all over the by the train station in the shade there, and they're no longer there, well.
Out of sight, out out of sight, out of mind, Matt, exactly.
And it's like you go to Boston Common and they have signs up saying don't feed the animals. But meanwhile you have all these cockroaches hanging out there panhandling, and that's okay, yeah, well.
That's the problem. It's don't give them money. Uh tell them you'll take him and buy him a sandwich, or buy them a cup of coffee, or buy them a dunkin Donuts, and most of them will walk away from you.
They're like acting in this like fantasy lamb where it's like like these people that didn't make many years of bad decisions end up the way they are. It's like you don't just underage drinks, smoke a couple of doobies and then become some fiend. It's like they they and then they just revive them. It's like you can't get rid of them, like they're indestructible, like cockroaches. You got to like fee well, I.
Don't want to call I don't want to call them matt. I don't want to use the word cockroaches. I've had friends of mine who have been severely addicted to uh, you know, to to heroin, to you know, so some pretty heavy duty drugs, and they have beaten it and whether you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, to get that monkey off your back and beat it, you have to have a lot of guts and courage, and a lot of these people eventually get themselves squared away.
But yeah, but no, yeah, of course you do.
You have to look at yourself in the mirror some morning and say I'm not doing this anymore. Yeah.
No, absolutely glad to be an indestructible heroin addict. It's like you're just remain a heroin addict until the EMT doesn't find.
You one day.
Exactly exactly. We'll let Matt. I appreciate you call, Thank you much. It's interesting. I thought you made an interesting point that that maybe City Hall plaza uh now is if these fakes folks have left, but they're still uh in in Brian's neighborhood. And Brian says that that sometimes he will see he'll see them walking around naked. I mean, this is it's it's a blight on the community in many many ways. Thanks, thanks, Matt, appreciate it. I gotta
get going here a little bit. I'm gonna pick the pace up round and get to get a few more in. Let me get John in the South End. John, you were next on night Side with your neighbor Brian McCarter.
Hey, Dan, Yeah, Ont and Alves from the South End. Great to be there. I know Brian well. Unfortunately or fortunately we've gotten to know each other because of this crisis. And the president of the Blackstone Frequent Square Neighbored Association, I also sit on some boards. I've been in the
South End for ten years. I have a sixteen month old daughter now, and I've been intimately involved in trying to push our elected officials, both at the city and state level to come up with solutions, as well as work with the police. And I would say, is that and this is for everybody. I mean, this affects everybody in the state. Even though the problem is concentrated in Boston, in particular the South End, the conditions of mass and
casts remain inhumane and out of control for everyone. That's the people with needles on their arms, rotting on the street, that's for the residents, and that's for the businesses. And you know what's been done and this goes back to the wallsh administration has not been effective. And I like a Nikki who runs Blunch, I know her. I know the restaurant wells at great Place. We do believe that the capacity of the city to handle this alone is matched out, and we need the governor, we need the state.
It's a support. I remember a few years ago with Governor Baker when they declared vaping a public health emergency and almost overnight, several hundred businesses closed while they investigated the effects of vaping. That shows you the power of the governor's office when something needs to be addressed on a public health level. Well, if vathing is the public health emergency, then what would you call the people injecting and doing drugs out in public, defecating on people's properties,
leaving hazardous needles around the city. If that's not a public health eergency, I don't know what it is. You know, the issue, even though it might be concentrated in the city of Boston, actually affects the entire state because, as Brian noted, sixty or seventy percent of the people that are coming to the Math and Cast area are actually not from the city of Boston. They're from all over the state.
So we might question. My question to you, John would be why has the mayor, who is also the mayor of the South End not recognize that this problem is beyond her control, and why not then seek some support from the state from a democratic She's a democratic mayor, a democratic governor. It seems to me that the stars should be aligned.
It would, it would appear, so I think. I think, based on my conversations with the administration, I think they do recognize it, but I think that they are fighting some forces that may be well intentioned, like the Boston Public Health Commision, and who are potentially counterintuitive to the solution.
Uh.
You know, there's been a policy mandate and this again goes back to the really the Walsh administration.
Who will points the Boston Health Commission, John.
I believe that's actually from the state. I think their funding comes from the state.
Who points the members of the Boston Public I guarantee it's the mayor who appoints the members of the Boston Public Health CAI.
Yeah, and I think they're I think they're funding might come from the state. But yeah, point being, you've got different agencies competing, and I think the intentions are good, but well, what's what's happening clearly isn't working, and many of us are pushing for really what's what's been considered to be mandated treatment protocols, which would empower the police to engage with folks to leverage the court system, UH
to push people into treatment. And you know, this policy of meet people where they are is really really not working because you can't meet people where they are if they don't know where they are.
Well, then you're going to have to win that battle in court because you're gonna have the A C. O. You going and representing the drug addicts and saying that we're somehow interfering with their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Trust me on that one.
Okay, Oh, I agree with you. We've we've seen that those lawsuits and.
Right and those lawyers and those those lawyers who are doing that don't live in the South End because if they lived in the South End they would look at it quite differently.
They don't, You're you're absolutely right, a lot of them don't. And you know the sad thing is is that again, enabling people to exist in this capacity on the street in this fashion is inhumane.
Hey, John, you know, here's John, here's my problem. You've been a great call, not a good call, but a great call. Brian, you have been a great guest. I'm out of time. What I'm going to do is I'm going to carry this subject into the next hour. So Mick and Austin, Bob and Cambridge. I'm in Fitzburg and Bill in Boston. Stay there. We'll pick this up on the other side of the ten Brian, do you want to stick with me or are you done for the night? You tell me your choice.
I stick around.
Good, you stick around. John. Your call was an excellent call, but I'm flat out of time. Please continue to listen to this program on this or any topic.
Okay, well, thank you Dan for bringing attention to the issue.
Thank you very welcome. Brian. You stay right there. We got a five minute break for news. Walk around, stretch your legs all you call or stay there. We got one line. This is an important enough issue for me to do more than one hour. It's as simple as that. Be right back on night Side.