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San Francisco has more drug addicts than students enrolled in public high school
- zdragnar 8y agoIt's San Francisco has more (drug addicts) than (students enrolled in highschool) not San Francisco has more (drug addicts than students) enrolled in highschool. I'm ashamed to admit I had to follow all the way to the source PDF to figure that one out.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago> There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools That didn't clear it up for you?
- zdragnar 8y agoI skimmed the title, glanced at what passed for an article, decided that was short enough to not be an original source, saw the PDF, realized the mistake, read the PDF, went back and read the original link. So, it probably would have cleared it up, had I decided that "Marginal Revolution" sounded like a reliable source, or if it had been a bit longer. I skimmed, and that's on me :/
- 55555 8y agoJust FYI marginal revolution is one of the best economics blogs online. It's a very credible source
- dokein 8y agoI don’t understand the second forumulation. What is (drug addicts than students) as an entity?
- muhneesh 8y agoMore drug addicts enrolled than students enrolled
- tfolbrecht 8y agoI think the parent is implying students can be drug addicts, and the drug addict figure is a set that include high school students.
- izzydata 8y agoThe second one doesn't make a lot of sense because you can't have more drug addicts enrolled in highschool than students enrolled in highschool because all drug addicts that are also enrolled in highschool would be students. Unless them being enrolled, but not attending class because they are drug addicts makes them not students.
- rhacker 8y agoMore correctly: San Francisco has more drug addicts than San Francisco has students enrolled in highschool.
- codemac 8y agoThere are less high school students in SF, period. There are less children in general. This is due to a large number of variables I don't see being controlled, and a severe lack of source information. I'm much more worried about the 10%+ dropout rates.
- muzz 8y agoExactly. The comparison is useless except as clickbait
- Bamafan 8y agoI think it's useful as far as making the amount stick in the brain. For like 90% of America a stat like that is a hugely disturbing figure.
- codemac 8y agoThe stat (more drug addicts than students) is actually true for all of America's population as well, so I'd imagine the same is true in just about any major US population center.
- jacobolus 8y agoInterestingly, there are a ton more kids (especially pre-school age kids) in my neighborhood than there were when I moved here 8 years ago. The combination of high housing prices in Bay Area suburbs and more yuppies willing to stay in the city has noticeably altered the demographics. There are now fewer groups of single 20-somethings walking about, and more families. I will be curious to see the numbers at the next census.
- dunham 8y agoOur pre-school age kid (mission/noe area), my brother's kid, and a number of his friends all moved out of the city before they reached school age. (Some to the bay area and other's further out.)
- 8y ago
- rootedbox 8y agoSan Francisco has more Doggy Day care than Kid Day care...
- SilasX 8y agoShouldn't this be linking to the the source article rather than a block post that just quotes two lines of it? http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/about-SFUSD/files/sfusd-facts-at-a-glance.pdf http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/about-SFUSD/files...
- rmah 8y ago24,500 injection drug users in SF means they are classifying one in in every 36 people as a "drug addict". This amount, if true, is over 20x higher than the national mean. Maybe it's true, but I find it difficult to believe that 1 in 32 SF adults are shooting up.
- exabrial 8y agoAfter visiting there last year, I think this number is believable.
- jeffdavis 8y agoI think the mean is a bad metric to use. Drug users are not distributed uniformly. There are certainly places where thr murder rate is more than 20x somewhere else, so the number is plaisible to me.
- kingnothing 8y agoAfter living there for a couple of yeas, it's probably correct.
- gamblor956 8y agoConsidering that states like Texas used to publicly brag about taking care of their homeless and druguser populations by shipping them to California, it's totally believable that there are a large number of (non-local) drug addicts now living in SF. For the record, Texas still openly admits to shipping its homeless and drug addicts to California.
- 131012 8y agoComments on the website are so weird. Is it a legitimate news source?
- jdminhbg 8y agoThe Marginal Revolution comments section is famously terrible compared to the above the fold content. You can follow links provided to the source material though.
- aphextron 8y agoDo people actually like SF? I try to avoid going there as much as possible. It's not even really a city, but more just a place where exurbanites congregate from 9 to 5 to conduct commerce. I've never encountered a more soulless, hollow, and overall depressing place in my entire life.
- Bamafan 8y ago> It's not even really a city, but more just a place where exurbanites congregate from 9 to 5 to conduct commerce. Definitely not the case. Lots of people live in the city of San Francisco, though it's also true a lot of people commute in from the South and East Bays. There are good things about the city, but the homeless problem (and really, that's what I think this is about) is a very serious issue that makes the place much, much less desirable.
- uxp100 8y ago> a place where exurbanites congregate from 9 to 5 to conduct commerce That describes many cities so much better than it describes SF. To answer your question. I like it alright. Not enough to live there. But filled with 9-5ers? When I think of SF I think of the incredibly packed dolores park on a sunny saturday, the small 2 story homes running towards the ocean in outer sunset, or the huge amount of music venues.
- redwards510 8y agoIt's difficult to like if you don't live there. If you come from outside you first start by paying the obnoxious entry fee (toll) just to cross into it. Then there is zero free parking, and I've seen it as high as $50-$60 for one day to park in the marina. If you do try to park on a street late at night (going to a club) you are really rolling the dice on whether your car gets broken into. Also, it smells like weed and/or feces everywhere. But if you lived in say, the Mission, and didn't own a car, those things would be mitigated. (You'd get used to the smell).
- MrMember 8y agoI'm not sure I'd get used to the smell of human shit and weed.
- redwards510 8y agoI think the title is somewhat misleading. When they discussed this on NPR yesterday it was "more street injection drug users" than high schoolers. I have no doubt there are more drug addicts than high schoolers. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any major city where that isn't true. If your definition of a drug addict is anyone who uses drugs (including marijuana) regularly.
- bdcravens 8y agoSeems like a strange statistic - high school encompasses only 4 years of a person's life, whereas there's no (practical) limit on when someone can be an addict.
- weliketocode 8y agoIt helps put in perspective on just how many addicts there are. Using a number like 25000 is difficult to understand in your head. 4 years is a lot of time! You probably see or are aware of high school age individuals throughout your day-to-day. Now imagine for every 1 high school age young-adult, your city also has 1.5 injection drug addicts. I think that puts things in perspective pretty well.
- bdcravens 8y agoFor a city like SF, probably more illustrative to show how many addicts there are for each programmer or Tesla.
- AboutTheWhisles 8y agoNot only that, but it isn't clear how many kids are in private schools, or even what the demographics are of both groups.
- miguelmota 8y agoThe homeless population in SF is insane. The sidewalks smell like piss and occasionally you try not to step over human feces. At this point I'm surprised that a hot startup in SF hasn't invented an industrial grade Roomba to clean up the sidewalks.