In 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic and protests following the killing of George Floyd, numerous Democratic-controlled states and cities implemented policing and drug policies without historical parallel. Drug use and dealing in public and private were largely tolerated; policing disorder in public spaces was considered racist; and harm reduction became the sole response to addiction.
As crime and overdoses mounted in areas that adopted these policies, however, some Democratic elected officials have responded with more pragmatic approaches that reduced crime and drug problems—and boosted their popularity with voters. In so doing, they demonstrated the truth of the maxim, “if you want new ideas, read old books.” The pragmatists are simply returning to common-sense principles that were widely accepted decades ago before they were driven from the public square.
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Those principles are simple: public policy should consider the impact of drug use on others, not just users; harm reduction alone is an inadequate response to drugs as a policy and a service; the best goal for addicted people is not mere survival, but recovery; it is socially just for police to prevent public spaces (e.g., playgrounds, sidewalks) from being taken over by drug-related commerce, drug use, or encampments; pressuring some people into addiction treatment is ethical and effective; and some publicly provided housing should require abstinence from substance use.
The blue city that has received the most attention for making a pragmatic shift is San Francisco—until recently a poster child for failed Democratic governance. Mayor Daniel Lurie, lamenting that San Francisco had “lost [its] way,” banned the distribution of clean crack pipes and foil on city sidewalks and required any distribution of hygienic drug use materials to be accompanied with counseling and referral to addiction treatment. Departing from the Housing First-only policies of Governor Gavin Newsom, the city is investing in residential arrangements that help people recover by banning drug use and dealing on site.
San Jose, a larger city but with a fraction of San Francisco’s media attention, has also charted a less ideological course under Mayor (and current gubernatorial candidate) Matt Mahan. To the ire of Governor Newsom, Mahan has demanded full funding of the mandated treatment for repeat drug offenders that California voters passed by a sizable margin in 2024. He has coupled offers of free, safe housing for homeless people with clearing of encampments in parks and on watersheds, backed up by the threat of arrest for anyone who refuses to move.
On the other side of the country, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker removed tents and refuse from the city’s notorious Kensington Avenue and increased police presence there. She simultaneously established a “wellness ecosystem” in the nation’s largest open-air drug scene. Public drug use and related crime can now result in mandated referral to a special court that, Portugal-style, pushes addicted individuals toward the services they need.
Mayor Parker invested opioid settlement dollars to convert a disused, city-owned senior-living community into a “recovery village” that currently houses about 250 formerly homeless people with addictions and will eventually expand to accommodate at least twice that number. In her recent budget address, Mayor Parker touted the fact that renovating and opening the facility took only 88 days, which should warm the hearts of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
The political activists who usually ruled the roost in these cities have not been pleased. A telling example is a San Francisco Board of Supervisors subcommittee hearing on a motion for the city not only to engage in harm reduction but also to strive for recovery of addicted people. Attendees speaking against the motion were mostly white, college-educated service providers or activists affiliated with NGOs, while those supporting it were mainly minorities who lived in the most affected neighborhoods.
This was a microcosm of the political split of 2024, with educated whites going in one direction (toward Kamala Harris) and every other demographic shifting toward Donald Trump. This pattern has been repeated for years at blue-city protests and town halls about policing and drugs. Until recently, the white kids with good teeth tended to win the battles.
At its worst, this outcome resulted in gross misrepresentation of what communities wanted. For example, most black Americans opposed defunding the police, but white activists and professionals who supported the policy managed to convince Democratic policymakers otherwise. I have seen “defund the police” signs in San Francisco’s upscale neighborhoods, but not in the Tenderloin, a majority-minority community with an open-air drug scene.
The reforming mayors deserve credit for taking on activists and enduring their opposition. Encouragingly, their policies have gathered an even more secure base after reducing crime and overdose deaths.
Homicide rates in San Francisco and Philadelphia are as low as they were in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively. San Jose has become one of the safest big cities in the country and in 2025 pulled off the remarkable feat of a 100 percent homicide clearance rate. Drug overdose deaths have been falling in all three cities, along with unsheltered homelessness in San Francisco and San Jose.
A grateful public has rewarded all three mayors with strong support. Lurie enjoys a 71 percent approval rating; Parker has 63 percent; and Mahan won reelection to his first full term in 2024 with 87 percent of the vote.
Clearly, the end of the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide decline in the strength of fentanyl put a wind at these cities’ backs. But taking advantage of new opportunities is something we want our elected leaders to do, and for which they should get credit.
It remains to be seen whether the success of these three big-city mayors, along with less-known elected officials who are emulating them, leads to a broader Democratic rethinking on drugs, policing, and crime. Whether the pragmatists can overcome the ideologues will shape the quality of urban life in America for years to come. It will also determine whether the Democratic Party can regain the urban, working-class, and minority voter support it has been losing.
Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images