> “We’ve spent the last 50 years trying to arrest our way out of this and it’s clearly not working. The conditions on the streets are getting worse, the drugs are becoming more dangerous and the health of the community is much, much worse with increased policing.”

So it clearly hasn't worked, but now it's getting worse. Maybe thinking police was meant to solve the problem is the wrong perspective. Regardless of initial motives for using police this way, maybe police was just preventing the problem from getting bigger. Now that those "barriers" are down, there is effectively no downside for trying out that lifestyle. I'm just saying there is a hidden factor at the root of the issue, which the state has not been able to find yet. At this point I'm wondering what if this problem is a societal problem that can only be fixed by the people and not the state.