California’s testing requirements for cannabis products contain major gaps. To understand what’s being missed and what consumers are exposed to, the Los Angeles Times bought more than 150 products from licensed stores, as well as from tobacco shops and illicit vendors, and had them tested at three state-licensed labs, Anresco Laboratories, SC Labs and Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs.
Those tests were conducted without the labs knowing what brand they tested.
Where available, the tests included expanded screening for more than 290 pesticides and checks for other hazardous materials, such as vitamin E acetate or synthetic cannabinoids.
The Times also obtained data from private market tests conducted on behalf of vape manufacturer Raw Garden and the March and Ash dispensary chain as well as participating labs.
Lab test results
Private lab tests show frequent pesticide contamination in cannabis, as well as the presence of synthetic THC and harmful dilution oils ●. Most products listed are vapes bought on the legal market. Pre-rolls, edibles and products bought outside legal venues are noted. Findings are based on California residue limits, including zero-tolerance chemicals. Where no state limit exists (off-list), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency threshold for evaluating pesticides on tobacco is used. For more detail about a product, click the finding icon.
*Analysis limited to 66 pesticides on California’s mandatory screening list
Products listed more than once were tested multiple times, or by different labs. Tests initiated by The Times were conducted blind. Anresco Laboratories and Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs provided additional data from independent shelf tests.
Anresco Laboratories, SC Labs, Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Pesticides pose a particular threat in inhaled cannabis products such as vapes or prerolls, because toxicants enter the lungs and travel through the bloodstream to internal organs, including the brain. In addition, heat from combustion causes some pesticides to degrade into harmful gases such as hydrogen cyanide.
In small concentrations, the risks from one-time use are minimal, but increase with repeated exposure over time.
A recent study that recommended toxic chemicals in black plastic products be immediately thrown away included a math error that significantly overstated the risks of contamination, but its authors are standing by their conclusions and warn against using such products.
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Chemosphere, experts from the nonprofit Toxic-Free Future said they detected flame retardants and other toxic chemicals in 85% of 203 items made of black plastic including kitchen utensils, take-out containers, children’s toys and hair accessories.
The study initially said the potential exposure to chemicals found in one of the kitchen utensils approached the minimum levels the Environmental Protection Agency deemed a health risk.
But in an update to the study, the authors say they made an error in their calculations and the real levels were “an order of magnitude lower” than the EPA’s thresholds. The error was discovered by Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society in Canada.
In a blog post, Schwarcz explained that the Toxin-Free Future scientists miscalculated the lower end of what the EPA considered a health risk through a multiplication error. Instead of humans being potentially exposed to a dose of toxic chemicals in black plastic utensils near the minimum level that the EPA deems a health risk, it’s actually about one-tenth of that.
Though Schwarcz said the risks outlined in the study aren’t enough for him to discard his black plastic kitchen items if he had them, he agreed with the authors that flame retardants shouldn’t be in these products in the first place.
“The math error does not impact the study’s findings, conclusions or recommendations,” said Megan Liu, a co-author of the study who is the science and policy manager for Toxic-Free Future. She added that any traces of flame retardants or toxic chemicals in cooking utensils should be concerning for the public.
Flame retardants are getting into commonly used items because black-colored products are being made from recycled electronic waste, such as discarded television sets and computers, that frequently contain the additives. When they’re heated, the flame retardants and other toxic chemicals can migrate out.
If you’re wondering whether your old black plastic spoon or other utensils are a part of this group, Liu shared some more guidance.
Generally, how do I know a product is harmful?
It’s nearly impossible to know whether a black plastic product is contaminated. That’s because these products that include recycled e-waste don’t disclose a detailed list of all ingredients and contaminants in the product.
Liu said it’s also unclear how many types of flame retardants are in these black plastic products.
Some of the products that researchers tested in this recent study “had up to nine different harmful chemicals and harmful flame retardants in them,” she said.
How can I find out if black plastic food trays are made with recycled contaminated plastic?
Anytime you’re looking for the type of recycled plastic a product is made of you’re going to look for a number within the chasing arrows (that form a triangle) logo.
Recycling symbols are numbered 1 to 7 and we commonly associate the numbers with what we can toss in our blue recycling bins. The 1 through 7 numbers stand for, respectively, polyethylene terephthalate, high-density polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), low-density polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene or Styrofoam, and miscellaneous plastics (including polycarbonate, polylactide, acrylic, acrylonitrile butadiene, styrene, fiberglass and nylon).
The study found higher levels of toxic flame retardants in polystyrene plastic, which is labeled with the number 6, said Liu.
When did recycled e-waste begin contaminating black plastic products?
There isn’t a definitively timeline of when recycled electronic-waste started to be incorporated into black plastic products specifically, but e-waste started to get recycled in the early 2000s, Liu said.
The way computers, cellphones, stereos, printers and copiers were being disposed of previously was to simply add them to a landfill without reusing salvageable parts.
But as the National Conference of State Legislatures notes, electronics production required a significant amount of resources that could be recovered through recycling.
Recovering resources such as metals, plastics and glass through recycling used a fraction of the energy needed to mine new materials.
However, the study pointed out that flame retardants and other chemical contaminates have been detected in and near e-waste recycling facilities, in indoor air and dust at formal e-waste recycling facilities in Canada, China, Spain and the U.S. It also noted contamination in soil samples surrounding e-waste recycling sites in China and Vietnam.
What are safer alternatives?
The safest nontoxic material options for kitchen utensil are wood and stainless steel.
A UC Davis study showed a nutty novel behavior in California squirrels: They’re hunting like carnivores, taking down and then consuming other, smaller rodents.
As part of an ongoing 12-year study of California ground squirrels at Briones Regional Park in Contra Costa County, researchers last summer watched as squirrels began to chase — and eat — voles, a cousin of field mice.
This suggests squirrels are much more opportunistic in their diets than previously realized, wrote the authors of the study, published Wednesday in the Journal of Ethology. Squirrels typically eat acorns, seeds, nuts and fruit, but are known to occasionally eat fresh carrion or roadkill, insects, eggs or other discarded food. Some squirrels at California’s college campuses have become infamous among students for their demanding behavior, even winning student elections, but they’ve never been seen hunting smaller rodents on such a widespread scale.
“This was shocking,” said lead author Jennifer E. Smith, an associate professor of biology at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. “We had never seen this behavior before. Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people. We see them right outside our windows; we interact with them regularly. Yet here’s this never-before-encountered-in-science behavior that sheds light on the fact that there’s so much more to learn about the natural history of the world around us.”
A video released by researchers shows a ground squirrel grabbing a vole by its neck and shaking it back and forth — clear predatory behavior meant to quickly kill prey, said Dan Blumstein, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA who studies marmots, a related species of large ground squirrel. In squirrels, most biological dietary factors, such as their teeth and stomachs, are adapted for vegetation such as nuts and seeds, not meat, he said.
Blumstein, before reading the details of the study, thought that the carnivorous behavior might have been isolated to female squirrels desperate for the nutrients needed to feed their young. But according to the study, the behavior was found in male and female squirrels across age groups. They displayed other behavior typically associated with predators: When one squirrel would successfully hunt down prey, another squirrel would sometimes try to steal it from the hunter.
“I could barely believe my eyes,” said Sonja Wild, a postdoctoral research fellow at UC Davis who co-led the project alongside Smith. “From then, we saw that behavior almost every day. Once we started looking, we saw it everywhere.”
The study authors posited one theory as to this previously unseen squirrel behavior: A boom in the local vole population — tracked by the crowdsourcing website iNaturalist — might have led the squirrels to take advantage of an available source of prey.
“The fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and can respond to changes in food availability might help them persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans,” Wild said.
Alice Morris, a graduate student at the University of Idaho that researches Idaho’s threatened ground squirrel population, said she’d never seen this type of behavior in her observations and was surprised by the study’s findings. Friends and family texted her about it multiple times Wednesday, she said.
Rising temperatures from climate change can cause disruptions in ecological food chains, according to the National Wildlife Federation. A lack of proper vegetation could cause smaller species to die out, leaving larger predators wandering into unfamiliar habitats to look for reliable food sources.
“Squirrels are really excellent examples of how animals can adapt to changing conditions,” Morris said.
Tom Girardi, the once legendary Los Angeles trial lawyer, was scheduled to be sentenced Friday after a federal jury convicted him of wire fraud.
But a judge on Wednesday canceled the proceeding as defense attorneys and prosecutors argued over whether Girardi, 85, should undergo additional medical testing and be sent to a medical facility, not prison, to serve his sentence.
In August, Girardi was found guilty of four counts of wire fraud for embezzling millions of dollars from his law firm’s clients, then using the funds to underwrite a lavish lifestyle for him and his now-estranged wife, reality TV star Erika Girardi.
Each count carries a maximum of 20 years in federal prison, but Girardi faces a less severe prison term under federal guidelines.
Prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence the disbarred lawyer to 14 years in prison and pay more than $3.7 million in restitution, stating that Girardi carried out a “calculated and devastating betrayal of the very people that turned to him for help in their darkest hour.”
Defense attorneys said that a sentence of five to seven years was more appropriate and that Girardi should not serve the time in prison, arguing that he has dementia and is “an octogenarian first-time offender convicted of nonviolent crimes who poses no ongoing or future threat to society.” The defense team has argued that keeping Girardi out of prison is more efficient, humane and cost-effective and that he should remain in the locked memory care ward of an Orange County nursing home.
“If left in Orange County, he can end his days under the care of his conservatorship, without freedom but with relative decency,” Girardi’s defense attorneys wrote.
With the dispute unresolved, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton delayed the sentencing and instead will schedule a future hearing over “whether defendant should be committed to a suitable facility in lieu of imprisonment.” The judge also ordered that Girardi undergo additional psychiatric or psychological evaluation. Staton had previously ruled Girardi had some cognitive impairment but was competent to stand trial and even showed signs of malingering, or exaggerating, his dementia symptoms.
The ruling is something of a win for Girardi and his lawyers, as it pushes sentencing to an unknown future date and provides a guaranteed extension of his stay in the Orange County facility.
For Girardi’s victims, some of whom testified at trial, the decision injects further delay in their quest to bring the former lawyer to justice. Several had written letters to the judge, pleading for accountability.
“The last-minute delay for Tom’s sentencing feels like a slap in the face,” said Kathy Ruigomez, who testified about how Girardi mishandled millions of dollars of a settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric after her son, Joseph, suffered severe burns in the San Bruno, Calif., gas explosion.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Ruigomez added.
Snow has been slow to arrive in Big Bear this year, but the long-term forecast calls for big changes.
Bear Mountain resort in Big Bear is adding its first new chair lift in 30 years, a six-seat, high-speed lift that will carry its first customers Thursday.
The new Midway lift (also known as Chair 5) holds up to six skiers at a time. Its features include a short conveyor belt that carries skiers and boarders to the spots where the lift will pick them up for a ride of about 2,500 feet.
“This is our bright, shiny, new toy for the season,” said Mark Burnett, the resort’s vice president for facilities, at a recent test run.
Though Bear Mountain opened chairlifts 7 and 9 for the season Dec. 13, management waited until later in the month before opening up the Midway lift, hoping for more snow that has yet to arrive. Skiers can get updates on Big Bear weather, trails and lifts here.
Meanwhile, Alterra Mountain Co., the company behind Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, Snow Valley and several of the largest winter resorts in the West, continues to inch forward on a bigger idea: linking Bear Mountain and Snow Summit with a pair of lifts and other amenities. This would allow skiers and boarders to move back and forth between resorts without driving or boarding a shuttle bus.
Under the plan — still under review by the U.S. Forest Service — the resorts would build a pair of “Big Bear Connect” lifts. To make the plan work, the two ski operations (together known as Big Bear Mountain Resort) would need to add about 300 acres to the nearly 1,500 acres they use now under permits from the Forest Service.
The Forest Service, which owns the land, began gathering public input on the proposed expansion plan in 2023.
“We are in the analysis phase,” U.S. Forest Service Mountain Resorts program manager Janelle Walker said, confirming that the project is still moving forward. She said “we had additional analysis that was needed, and we are planning to get the Draft Environmental Assessment out to the public in spring 2025.” Even after approval, resort officials noted, the project could take years to complete.
In the meantime, skiers and boarders have the new lift at Bear Mountain’s to try out.
How the new lift works
Bear Mountain officials said they’ve spent about $10.2 million on the new Midway lift, which replaces the now-departed chairlifts 1, 2 and 5 in the resort’s central base area.
Designed by the lift specialist company Leitner-Poma, it is expected to carry passengers 2,494 feet upslope in as little as 2.5 minutes. The lift will be able to carry as many as 3,200 people per hour, resort officials say.
“Now all we need is the snow,” said Burnett.
The construction, which began in May, included helicopters carrying a dozen towers to their new places on the slopes, while other workers dug a vast hole to hold the lift’s many moving and stationary parts at the base of the mountain.
Bear Mountain, known for its terrain parks and half-pipes, has operated under various names in the San Bernardino National Forest since the 1940s. For many years, the resort has relied heavily on artificial snow-making, attracting many beginner and intermediate skiers and snowboarders.
Burnett estimated that in the last eight years, management has invested $30 million in improvements to Bear Mountain, with further investment at Snow Summit and Snow Valley.
How Bear Mountain and Snow Summit could link together
Like many ski resorts, those in Big Bear include large chunks of U.S. Forest Service land, where resort companies operate under long-term special use permits, building improvements and sharing a portion of their income with the Forest Service.
The permits are good through 2057, resort officials said, and linking them would require another 300 acres of Forest Service land between the two. Within that area, the “footprint of disturbance” would be relatively small, Walker said — less than 100 acres.
The main way to travel between the resorts now is to drive or catch one of the free Intermountain Shuttle buses that depart every half-hour for the 10-minute journey between the resorts.
Though Bear Mountain and Snow Summit have been under common ownership since 2002, talk of linking them didn’t heat up until after they were bought up by Mammoth Mountain in 2014, then swallowed in 2017 (along with Mammoth) by the Denver-based company now known as Alterra Mountain Co.
Alterra, one of the biggest names in the ski industry, operates 19 resorts in the Western U.S. and Canada and uses its popular Ikon season passes to market them together.
The company’s proposed link between Bear Mountain and Snow Summit is part of a broader upgrade that is spelled out in a Big Bear Mountain Resort Master Development Plan, filed by resort officials with the Forest Service in 2020.
Besides adding the acreage and two lifts — which would average 4,250 feet in length — the plan would include construction of a Goldmine Mountain Lodge (including restaurant) on Bear Mountain; the creation of 60 acres of trails in and near the expansion area; clearing trees; and building a skier bridge so that skiers and boarders can cross above an existing mountain road, 2N10, that runs between Snow Summit and Bear Mountain.
Other elements of the proposal: addition of a zipline system; 12 new mountain biking trails; a “mountain coaster” attraction on land already covered by permits or owned by Alterra; and the addition of about 1,400 parking spaces. Resorts officials said the cost of these projects is yet to be determined, pending reviews and approvals.
To put the connection between resorts in simplest terms, Big Bear Mountain Resorts advertising and public relations director Justin Kanton said, “we’re talking about a narrow ravine with two lifts coming in and out.”
“And there’s already a road that goes in and out,” Burnett added.
In the month after the August 2023 release of Alterra’s proposed plans, more than 40 local residents weighed in with letters to the Forest Service and expressed a mix of caution and support.
Mitchell Chivetta warned that “the local infrastructure cannot handle the current influx of visitors during the winter.” Even when highway 330 and 38 are in good repair, Chivetta wrote, “the traffic on these roads caused by inexperienced winter drivers creates hardship for local residents and frustrates all drivers.”
Conversely, Justin Kohlas wrote that “we’re way overdue for an upgrade to the resorts and experience on the mountain. To be able to move from Bear Mountain to Snow Summit and vice versa without the need to wait in a shuttle line makes so much sense.”
California cannabis regulators and industry defenders argue that despite the proliferation of pesticides found in legal weed, licensed products are still safer and purer than those sold on the underground market.
That isn’t always true, according to an analysis of tests conducted by The Times.
Of 16 cannabis products bought from unlicensed sellers or tobacco shops, half contained no quantifiable levels of pesticides. The pesticide adulteration rate matched that of products from California’s legal market, which mandates screening for 66 pesticides but ignores scores of other compounds The Times found.
The similarity between legal and illegal products “doesn’t shock me,” said Josh Swider, chief executive and co-founder of Infinite Chemical Analysis Labs, which provides cannabis testing services in California and Michigan. “Normally, the illicit market is just buying from the legal market brokers. It’s not like there really are two different markets….”
The limited tests offer a narrow glimpse into the world of unlicensed stores and tobacco shops, where there are no testing requirements, and little to no information available on the provenance of products. And the prevalence of counterfeit goods — three products bought in illicit shops carried the names of legal brands but were probably fakes — compounds the risk to consumers willing to gamble on what they get.
“The legal market’s oversight and accountability measures ensure far greater consumer safety than the unregulated alternative,” the California Department of Cannabis Control said in a prepared statement.
Unregulated products were more likely to be pesticide-free because they contained artificial forms of THC — Delta 8, HHC— that result from processing hemp through a number of chemical treatments.
Hemp-derived THC is much cheaper than the naturally grown drug, but requires chemical reactions and acids that create byproducts with unknown health consequences. “It’s not a pesticide problem, but it has other health implications,” Swider said.
Synthetic or converted THC was not confined to the illicit market. The Times found lab-created cannabinoids present in vapes sold by four legal brands — Phat Panda, Circles, Cloud and Flav.
These artificial compounds are prohibited in California’s legal market, but the state does not screen for them.
Infinite developed a test to detect artificial THC, a tool that could encourage compliance with regulations that prohibit the synthetic compound. Email records reviewed by The Times show that California regulators refused to validate the test, saying resources are focused “on verifying methods that are required by law.”
Michigan regulators, however, approved the tests, with three cannabis labs now offering the service and three others seeking certification.
Other dangers lurk in the marketplace.
Vitamin E acetate, linked to vaping deaths, was found in a Runtz-branded product bought at an illicit shop in East Los Angeles.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
A Runtz vape sold at an unlicensed outlet in East Los Angeles was found to have been cut with vitamin E acetate, the test results showed. Four years ago, vitamin E acetate, used to dilute vape cartridges, was strongly linked to the hospitalization of thousands of vape users and 68 deaths. The chemical was found in an illicit product. California does not screen for it in the regulated market.
Meanwhile, the heaviest pesticide loads were found in legal products. A Backpack Boyz vape bought at a state-licensed store in Atwater, for instance, contained 32 different pesticides. California regulators in October shut down the small state-licensed Van Nuys operation that had manufactured it and other contaminated products sold on the licensed market.
Backpack Boyz in June claimed its products containing pesticides were counterfeits from the illegal market, even though they had been bought at Backpack Boyz stores. The company since has not responded to requests for comment.
No contact information could be found for Runtz. Packaging for the tainted product carried a state cannabis sticker but bore no state license number or manufacturer name.
Where unregulated and licensed products differed most was in the kinds of pesticides they contained.
Illegal products most often carried chemicals on the state’s 66-chemical screening list — supporting a common belief that products that fail the state test are diverted to the illicit market.
Conversely, licensed products more commonly had pesticides for which the state does not screen. A third of state-legal cannabis products contained pymetrozine, which California does not test for.
The carcinogenic insecticide did not show up in a single unregulated product.
Los Angeles Unified school principals — saying their workload is too heavy and the pressure to raise student achievement, manage complex budgets and keep campuses safe is too intense — have voted to join the Teamsters union in a rebuke to the leadership of Supt. Alberto Carvalho and the Board of Education.
In an election that concluded last week, 85% of voting members, who include principals and other mid-level administrators, chose to unionize. In essence, the leaders of 1,300 public schools in the nation’s second-largest school system — known for strict adherence to policies and for echoing the district’s messaging — have said their burden is unfair and their voices go unheard.
“What I hear from the field is people want out, people want to retire early, and they don’t feel supported,” said Maria Nichols, president of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the union that already represented school administrators and which conducted the election to affiliate with the Teamsters. “It’s task upon task upon task. They’re overworked and on overload.”
Having the muscle and experience of the Teamsters will make a difference, said Nichols: “People are asking for change, and we knew that if we didn’t do something transformational, we were going to get the same results as last year, which is nothing. Now we’re ready to be able to take the district to collective bargaining.”
Senior district officials, who are not involved in labor organizing, defended their actions, while trying not to stoke the anger of the newly fired-up union.
“Los Angeles Unified is committed to being the district of choice not only for families but also for employees,” according to a district statement. “We strive to provide our workforce with competitive salaries, unrivaled benefits, and professional growth and development opportunities. This was demonstrated in our last negotiations in which we implemented historic salary increases.”
Unions for school administrators are uncommon because most school districts are small, but they are not rare among larger entities. The American Federation of School Administrators has 150 locals across the country. Eight locals are part of the California Assn. of Urban School Administrators, including AALA.
The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles has been known for working closely with upper management. Former President Nery Paiz had expressed respect for Carvalho and advocated for his members through this collegial connection.
Although Paiz gradually became more vocal in expressing the unhappiness of his members, he was swept out of office in March, an unusual step for members of that group.
Principals interviewed by The Times requested anonymity out of a fear of retaliation. Principals have tenure protections as teachers but are at-will employees as principals.
One elementary school principal spoke of a string of central-office mandates that stripped principals of meaningful autonomy and also a system that left principals undertrained for essential tasks such as evaluating teachers.
“No one is honoring time limits, and the lead time to prepare faculty and staff,” said another principal. “It’s like we’re constantly in the 12th hour. They just want to see numbers, numbers, numbers, and they ignore the story behind the number.”
Carvalho has said it was necessary to centralize operations for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness. He points to recent rises in test scores as validation.
Principals say pressure is too great
A high school principal complained about shrinking school staffing and expanding central bureaucracy:
“Now we have offices over tutoring, innovation and education excellence,” the principal said. “Tutoring programs used to be embedded into the division of instruction. Now there is an entire office of six or seven people doing it. School budgets were reviewed by two people in the past. Now there are two additional layers that review budgets. I will get the same email from three different offices and they are walking all over each other.”
In contrast, the district leadership says it has saved millions of dollars by consolidating positions and closing vacancies. In a recent presentation, however, the district’s chief financial officer said that, for some time, staff positions districtwide have been rising even as student enrollment declines, creating long-term potential budget problems.
The principals interviewed also complained about the removal of school police from campus and the overall reduction of the school police force. The school board majority voted in June 2020 to slash school police funding by 35% and remove officers from campus. Formerly, a typical high school had one regular officer and two middle schools would share an officer.
The school board cut back on police in response to heightened student activism that followed the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. The students said the presence of police diminished the learning environment and especially made Black and Latino students feel like suspects.
One principal said district insiders told her that 14 guns have been seized on campuses since the start of the school year through November.
The school district declined to confirm or deny that figure, but has acknowledged a steep rise in such categories as fights, weapons seizures and use of illegal or controlled substances such as drugs.
In lieu of police officers, the district has expanded counseling and mental health supports, and administrators said they also favor such extra help for students and, if anything, need more of it.
60-hour workweeks
All of the principals complained about the workload and about undue pressure to meet performance targets.
In a recent member survey, “half of my members were working 50 hours a week,” Nichols said. “The other half were working 60-hour weeks. And in the past, if you work beyond your hours and you had professional development to attend to, you would have been paid overtime. That went away with the new district leadership. Carvalho got rid of that.”
Extra duty pay had been more routinely available for many administrators, but there also was abuse of overtime among some, which senior officials had been trying to clamp down on even prior to Carvalho’s arrival in February 2022.
Workers represented by AALA earn in the range of $80,000 annually to about $195,000, depending on the job and on the experience and training of the individual, per a recently posted salary table. Principals’ salaries range from about $113,000 to $173,500, according to the union.
Upon taking office as AALA president, Nichols pledged to be more assertive, and she urged members to bring in the Teamsters, who have 1.4 million members across North America. Their members include transit workers, police, mechanics, court employees, prison guards and cafeteria workers.
Last year, school administrators in the Richmond, Va., public schools joined the Teamsters. AALA will affiliate with Teamsters Local 2010, which represents 23,000 clerical, administrative and skilled trades workers throughout the University of California and California State University systems.
Union members will pay higher dues but will have access to Teamsters researchers, bargaining resources and legal defense.
“We are excited about becoming Teamsters because we now have leverage, power, knowledge and a partner with a proven track record in getting the results we need,” Nichols said.
The Teamsters will represent all AALA members, who include assistant principals and middle managers with a teaching credential in the regional and central offices as well as one unit of managers without a teaching credential. AALA has about 2,750 members.
Prior to the vote, under different contracts, the Teamsters already represented L.A. Unified school custodial supervisors — called plant managers — as well as cafeteria managers. Thus, it would be hard to keep campuses open if all the Teamsters-affiliated workers were to go on strike. In past strikes by other union-represented employees, administrators have been indispensable in keeping schools open, although campuses were closed during a three-day strike by other workers in 2023.
Reaching this point once seemed unlikely
Not only are principals part of management, but they’ve benefited from an informal policy under which the powerful teachers union would agitate for wage hikes — and other district employees would get the same raise without having to fight for it.
But that system has begun to break down.
Even though the most recent teacher raises were sizable — about 21% over three years — it was not enough to satisfy the separate union that represents the district’s lowest-paid employees, including teacher aides and cafeteria workers. Their union, Local 99 of Service Employees International Union, wanted a higher percentage raise than the teachers — and got it — after that three-day strike.
Meanwhile, senior officials including Carvalho indicated that the era of applying contract benefits won by the teachers union to employees outside that union was likely to end for budgetary reasons.
Even though L.A. Unified has avoided layoffs faced by some other school systems, many employees have had to accept transfer to lower-paid positions. As one example, Carvalho and the Board of Education authorized closing out the jobs of 400 assistant principals — all of them had been represented by AALA.
CHOWCHILLA, Calif. — Gazing across the crowd of women, fresh from county jail in their orange prison jumpsuits, Lena Coleman wishes she could save them all.
And it’s her job to try.
In July, after 20 years in prison for attempted murder and a gun enhancement, Coleman, 47, became one of three dozen prisoners at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla to graduate from a peer support specialist program.
California’s efforts to improve conditions at the women’s prison in Chowchilla are complicated by the deep level of trauma many female prisoners have experienced.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The program is a part of the California Model, an ambitious effort Gov. Gavin Newsom launched in March 2023 to overhaul a prison system built on fear and retribution and replace it with opportunities for more normalized social interaction. The changes are modeled after prison operations in Norway and other Scandinavian countries, where incarceration is considered a tool for rehabilitation rather than harsh punishment.
At Chowchilla, a sprawling campus set in the farm fields of Madera County, the peer support specialists have become the backbone of that transformation.
Every day, they fan out across the prison, serving as something between a therapist and life coach to the roughly 2,100 women incarcerated at the facility, one of two women’s prisons in California.
Coleman works in Building 501, a reception yard that houses new prisoners before they transfer “over the wall” into the general population.
Prisoner Markeisha Dixon is among the trained peer support specialists working to instill a stronger sense of community for women incarcerated at the Chowchilla women’s prison.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Her job is often limited in scope: helping a new arrival find prison garb that fits, or working with the healthcare services team to remind patients to take their medicine or attend an upcoming medical appointment.
Other times, the work requires more intense intervention.
Staff might call a peer support specialist to help de-escalate violence or ease a behavioral crisis. As mandated reporters, they can be the difference between someone dying of suicide or accepting mental health services.
Mostly, Coleman is there for whenever someone needs to talk — or cry — with a trusted confidant.
“I tell them that prison is going to be what you make it,” she said. And then she offers them a piece of advice: “I’m just like you. I’ve been there, done that. Only difference is I have changed my ways.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom launched the California Model reform effort in 2023 at San Quentin, with an aim of expanding job training and rehabilitation programs.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Newsom chose San Quentin in Marin County, the state’s oldest prison, to jump-start the California Model last year. At San Quentin, prison officials are focused on improving relations between officers and prisoners, two historically warring factions in a violent system unaccustomed to change.
The California Model looks a bit different at Chowchilla — and it must.
A majority of incarcerated women in the U.S. endured some combination of physical, sexual and emotional abuse before committing the crime that sent them to prison, researchers have found. Often, that abuse was inflicted by a husband or boyfriend. Most are single moms of young children who have lost custody because of their crimes.
At the same time, women’s prisons often lack the mental health services and rehabilitative programming to help address deep trauma, said Alycia Welch, associate director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Prisons and jails, when they were built, were not built at all with women in mind,” Welch said.
Compared with male inmates, incarcerated women report higher rates of sexual assault in prison. In September, federal prosecutors announced a civil rights investigation into sexual abuse at both Chowchilla and the California Institution for Women in Chino, citing multiple reports of groping, inappropriate touching and rape by correctional workers.
Officer Josephine Solis opens a dorm room for a prisoner inside C Block at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Over the last two years, more than 100 formerly incarcerated women have brought lawsuits against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and current and former correctional officers, alleging graphic incidents of sexual abuse by prison staff dating back a decade.
Corrections officials have said they welcome the investigation. They said that recent reforms have made it easier for women to report misconduct and that staff are now required to wear body cameras at the two women’s prisons. Expanded training to help staff work with prisoners who have dealt with significant trauma is a key pillar of the California Model.
While Coleman appreciates the efforts by Newsom and others in Sacramento to overhaul the state’s dark prison culture, she thinks it’s important for prisoners themselves to help steer the changes. And she views her mission as a peer support specialist as central to that transformation: working to instill a sense of community inside prison walls that was often missing for these women on the outside.
“We all have untreated trauma that contributed to criminalization. So when we come in here, we share our lived experiences with each other,” Coleman said. “We’re more comfortable with each other than we would be with staff.”
Statewide, female inmates make up fewer than 5% of California’s 91,000 prisoners. Of the nearly 51,000 people serving time in state prisons who were convicted of violent crimes, fewer than 2,000 are women.
When women do commit violent offenses, researchers have found the episodes often are tied to self-defense or coercion by an abusive partner. “Sometimes women describe it as something just snapped, and they couldn’t take it anymore. And they acted out as their only means of protection,” Welch said.
Women attending a support group at the Chowchilla prison reflect on the role trauma has played in their lives — and how it helped put them behind bars.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
That makes it more crucial for women’s prisons to have the kind of robust rehabilitation and job training envisioned under the California Model, to better prepare them for release, she said.
The peer support specialists are part of that effort, said Affie Tamuno-Koko, chief nurse executive for the state prison system. In addition, providing formal training as certified peer support specialists gives the women who eventually will be released from prison a transferable job skill. The certification, combined with their on-the-job experience while incarcerated, ensures “they’re not coming out as entry level,” Tamuno-Koko said.
Beyond the employment possibilities, the role “has restored their value as people,” Tamuno-Koko said. “I think it’s a very selfless act, to not just care about yourself, but really want to spend your time genuinely helping someone.”
“You’re going to get on the train or get off,” Lt. Monique Williams says of California Model naysayers. “Because we’re moving.”
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Lt. Monique Williams, the prison’s public information officer, said the women doing peer support are making a tangible difference. The peer support specialists at Chowchilla have provided more than 10,000 one-on-one counseling sessions and 430 group sessions, according to the corrections department.
“They’re needed,” Williams said. “Women understand women.”
Lynne Acosta, a former prisoner, said she can see the transition unfolding. Acosta was incarcerated for more than 20 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder before her 2018 release from Chowchilla. Now she’s back inside on a regular basis running group sessions as a life coach working for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit that provides reentry and support services for former prisoners.
Huddled in a circle in a drab prison classroom in the middle of June, she led a group of two dozen women who were reflecting on the role trauma had played in their lives — and how it helped put them behind bars.
The women gathered had been locked up for charges including drug and firearms possession, robbery and murder. Nearly half were serving life sentences.
“Emotionally, physically, sexually, we are retraumatized, revictimized everyday in here,” said prisoner Kandice Ortega, a peer support specialist at the Chowchilla women’s prison. “That needs to change.”
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“How many of you in here, regardless of your sentence, it’s your first time ever in trouble?” Acosta asked. Almost everyone raised a hand.
How many were survivors of domestic violence? About half.
And how many think they might have avoided their crimes if they had received support for addiction, domestic violence, sexual assault or other traumas? Everyone.
Acosta remembers the years when such support groups were uncommon, and how badly she needed them.
“Women aren’t supposed to commit violent crimes,” was the common notion, Acosta said. Women were “demonized and dehumanized,” as though because of their gender, they should be doubly punished for ending up in prison.
Lynne Acosta, a former prisoner who is now a life coach, pushes a condemned prisoner out of her dorm unit at the Central California Women’s Facility.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Acosta now lives nearby in the Central Valley and visits the prison almost every day to lead sessions. She’s optimistic that the state’s reform efforts are creating opportunities that might make things a little better for her friends who are still inside.
They include Elizabeth Lozano.
Lozano, 49, grew up in a violent neighborhood in Long Beach, where she said she experienced sexual abuse by a family member. She was sentenced to life without parole for her involvement, at age 16, in a 1992 gang shooting that killed a 13-year-old girl. Lozano was convicted of murder, although her boyfriend said he pulled the trigger.
In prison, Lozano received her associate’s degree in behavioral and social sciences, and co-founded an organization for juvenile offenders, along with another group that brings victims, law enforcement officers and prisoners together for discussions.
This year, Lozano became a peer support specialist as another way to make amends, she said. She works with fellow prisoners on coping skills and anger management, and helps them set goals for their time in prison or look up legal cases in the law library. After losing a loved one in prison in 2016 to an apparent suicide, Lozano also counsels women experiencing mental health crises.
Recent changes to state law make it easier for offenders who were imprisoned as youths to be released. Lozano’s next parole hearing is in May.
“I can’t undo the great harm that I have caused,” Lozano said. “I feel like the only thing that I can do is give from the best part of me and help others in their recovery.”
The majority of incarcerated women endured some combination of physical, sexual and emotional abuse before committing the crime that sent them to prison, according to researchers.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Adding to the challenges of overhauling an entire correctional system are the traumas that happen within prison walls.
The allegations of widespread sexual abuse and serial rapes at the Chowchilla and Chino facilities that are the basis for the federal civil rights investigation may have come as a jolt to state corrections officials, but not to the women who came to see it as part of prison life.
“Emotionally, physically, sexually, we are retraumatized, revictimized everyday in here,” said Kandice Ortega, 38, a peer support specialist who has served 15 years for second-degree murder. “That needs to change.”
Williams, the public information officer, said she hopes — and believes — that change is underway.
Williams has worked for the corrections department for 23 years, rising through the ranks to become a lieutenant. She worked for several years in the unit that housed California’s death row for women before the state’s recent efforts to transition condemned prisoners into the general population.
Fellow staffers, as well as prisoners interviewed, said Williams embodied the spirit of the California Model before it had a name. She spends her days in a swirl of energetic motion, defying stereotypes of cold, bullying guards. She addresses prisoners with candor and kindness, stopping frequently to ask about their lives.
Williams has visited Norway twice to learn about prison practices she could bring back to Chowchilla. She’s coordinated barbecues and parties for staff and prisoners to improve relations. During a Juneteenth celebration, she took the stage and sang gospel music for the prisoners.
“You’re going to get on the train or get off,” she said of California Model naysayers. “Because we’re moving.”
Coleman, the peer support specialist, also chooses to believe that progress is possible. Either things can continue as usual, leaving incarcerated women to deteriorate in their isolation and trauma. Or they can grow and heal so they are better citizens when they leave prison — and strengthen the sense of community for those left behind.
“We have each other, we have the peer support specialist program, and we do have some staff that do care,” Coleman said. “Is this going to be make it a perfect setting? … No. Not even the world outside these gates is.”
On a Friday at the end of October, Coleman was working her way through a stack of paper with the names of dozens of women she was supposed to counsel that week. She called one woman over for a check-in.
Brandi Collins was back in prison.
For more than half her life, Collins, 43, has struggled with addiction to crystal meth and crack cocaine. Prison records show she has been incarcerated nearly a dozen times.
“I have a criminal thinking,” Collins said. “This is my home.”
But this time, she has Coleman, someone she can trust and confide in.
“I felt bad about my dang self. So maybe the first week I was here, I said, ‘Can I talk to you?’” Collins said.
“Do we judge you for returning?” Coleman asked.
“No, she didn’t judge. I know they’ve seen me on this yard a thousand times,” Collins responded.
“I want to forgive myself, and I want to change, and I don’t know what it takes,” she said. Then, turning to Coleman, she said, “I look at you and you give me hope.”
Nancy Adams grew comfortable sharing her Compton townhome during the COVID-19 pandemic when she rented spare bedrooms to traveling nurses.
Still, it was a long leap of faith to open her home to her current house guest — a paroled murderer.
Adams, 72, had retired from a career in banking but still relishes her backup job, tending bar at Crypto.com Arena.
“I try to keep it exciting,” she said. “What’s the point of waking up?”
But it was something deeper — a mixture of Christian faith, a familial experience with incarceration, a touch of loneliness — that drew her to the post on social media seeking homes for former inmates.
“The thought of what I had read wouldn’t leave me alone.”
After mulling it over a week, Adams responded. In October, she became a host for the Homecoming Project, a prison reentry program that turns private homes into transitional housing for men and women during their first year out of prison.
Adams, who had accepted her brother back into her home after more than a decade of estrangement and cared for him through his final years, was intuitively aligned with the mission.
“This is a great thing,” she said. “They didn’t have anything like this when my brother was in and out of prison.”
Given profiles of three prospects, her choice was easy.
After 29 years in prison and a stint in a halfway house, Nicholas Nabors moves into a bedroom of his own.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
A loner who spent most days in his room didn’t feel right. A smoker was a hard no.
The third might have seemed the least likely fit. Nicholas Nabors murdered a convenience store clerk during a robbery when he was 16. He was paroled after serving just under 30 years of a 34-year to life sentence.
But there was something about him that appealed to Adams. He had earned an AA degree and thrived in his work in prison making DMV tags. He had met his fiancee through prison correspondence. He had a job on a maintenance crew with the California Department of Transportation.
“His core seems to be good, a person who has dreams and vision and hope to move his life forward,” she said. “He just needs a little assistance to do that.”
::
The Oakland-based Homecoming Project was launched in 2018 by the national nonprofit Impact Justice, whose mission is investing in community-based models of justice reform.
The Homecoming Project has placed 157 former inmates in Bay Area homes. After their six-month stays, none of the 37 who have so far graduated has returned to prison.
With a grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and funds from the California Workforce Development Board, the Homecoming Project branched out to Los Angeles earlier this year. Adams was the fifth volunteer to answer its call. Currently the program is serving six former inmates, two have graduated and six more are signed up to begin in January.
The project is funded to add more than 80 participants next year, up to half in Los Angeles, seeking to provide a model for addressing the high rate of post-incarceration homelessness.
A study by the Prison Policy Institute found that about 2% of formerly incarcerated people were homeless. That’s about three times the rate for the general population in Los Angeles County and 10 times the national rate and means that the prison system could be adding hundreds of people a year to the state’s homeless population.
Homecoming Project director Bernadette Butler acknowledges that the scale of the effort so far is not going to provide a significant alternative to the system of group homes contracted by the state to support the reentry of 35,000 to 40,000 inmates released from California prisons annually.
She sees it as a demonstration.
“We are showing the world what is possible.”
::
Nabors had no immediate family to turn to when he was released. He was prohibited from contacting his younger brother, who had joined him in the fatal robbery, and strongly advised by the parole board to stay away from his mother, who gave him the gun used in the robbery and then made national news by testifying against him in his trial.
Paroled to Los Angeles, he spent 90 days in a drug rehabilitation program near MacArthur Park. Even though, he said, addiction was not a problem he completed the program as required and then moved to a transitional home in South Los Angeles.
After six months, his funding from the state STOP program expired, and he had to start paying $750 rent for a shared room.
At a low point, he turned to the Los Angeles office of the Center for Employment Opportunities, one of four organizations that partner with the Homecoming Project. They got him the Caltrans job, and a staffer saw his potential and referred him to the Homecoming Project.
Three months later, Nabors moved into the four-bedroom home in a gated community just east of Compton City Hall. On move-in day, he and Adams exchanged thoughts on what brought them together and what might come of it.
“I don’t have to live in a house by myself anymore,” Adams said. “That’s a good thing.”
Nicholas Nabors moves into a bedroom with help from Ashley McKay, left, a program associate with the Homecoming Project.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Her own experience with redemption also surfaced.
“The part of my life of being a Christian, a practicing Christian, you got to step out of your comfort zone and do something differently,” she said.
She did when her brother showed up and asked for forgiveness.
“You know sincerity when you see it,” she said. “He apologized for all the things he did to us as a family.”
She let him in and cared for him the last four and a half years of his life as he died of renal disease.
“That freed me up tremendously. I don’t think I would be doing this if my brother hadn’t done that.”
Nabors articulated his hope for the program as if he had already experienced it.
“It put me in normal environment,” he said. “It allowed me to live with someone who wasn’t system orientated, they weren’t going to look at me necessarily as an inmate, that I was going to be treated as a normal person. I was going to have freedom and have the space to grow and figure out exactly who I was outside of prison. Traditional programs don’t necessarily do that.”
A month later, both described an evolving relationship that was closer to roommates than landlord-tenant. They don’t spend a lot of time together. He leaves for work in the morning, she leaves for her job before he returns.
“The thing with Nick is he’s just such a cool guy and he’s easy to talk to,” Adams said.
More reflective than on day one, Nabors delved into his own journey.
“I did something horrible at 16, and for the next 30 years, whenever I tried to identify myself, the picture that they had was at 16. It’s a fistfight, it’s a brawl, to get anyone to see you as anything other than that.
“And for me, I mean, it’s been a struggle, but at this point, I feel like it’s empowering for me just to embrace it.”
Nabors’ self-awareness is not the exception for Homecoming Project clients, Butler said. All must have done at least 10 years, giving them time to reflect and to complete three required rehabilitation programs. Many have had life sentences reduced — a subgroup that has a recidivism rate under 3%, the lowest of all released prisoners.
The parole process, in which only 14% of petitions are granted, is “an incredible first layer of screening,” Butler said.
Candidates are further screened informally by parole officers and staff at partner organizations such as the Center for Employment Opportunities who make referrals.
In the balance between clients and hosts, there are always more clients, Butler said.
“There’s never going to be a shortage of people leaving prison. Our growth is contingent on recruiting hosts.”
To compensate them, the Homecoming Project provides a stipend of $8,600 for the six months. To make the best match, it also preps potential hosts with every detail of their future guest’s past including psychological assessments of their future criminal behavior from their time in prison.
Nabors’ profile had one complication in that he was engaged. But that was also a strong point. He credits much of the character development to their nine years of correspondence.
“People kind of discredit the idea that you have a relationship in prison,” he said. “Well, the truth is that you communicate more when you’re in prison, because that’s all that you have. I challenge any guy to tell me that he’s written his wife a 37-page letter, right, and that you’ve read her 35-page letter in return and took time to literally go line by line and understand what she was saying and then respond to what she was saying, not necessarily how you felt.”
He said writing through his emotions, and reading through hers, caused him to reflect in a much deeper way.
“What am I angry about? So I have to go back. I have to read her letter. OK, what did you say to make me feel so mad? But in that, what we’re doing is that we’re practicing active listening.”
Now, she and her teenage daughter are welcome guests on weekends. Once the six-month program ends, Nabors plans to work with her building a business to operate transitional housing for ex-prisoners.
Nabors and his fiancee, whose privacy he asked to be respected, married Nov. 11 in a ceremony attended by his former supervisor at the Prison Industry Authority but not his mother.
Nicholas Nabors looks out a window as he moves into a bedroom of his own in Compton.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“I’ve atoned for those things. I’ve done my time. I’ve explored my life. I’ve gained insight and all those things that we need to do in order to become a better person. My mother hasn’t done that.”
Adams took a longer view.
“I know it’s not a good thing right now, right? You know what I’m saying, but at some point before he leaves this earth, he gonna want to see that woman.”
He was bent at the waist, wobbly and shoeless on grimy pavement at the end of an alley where fires smolder, drug users gather day and night, and death lurks.
Slowly, he made his way across the parking lot behind the Yoshinoya restaurant at Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street. It was not a normal gait, but in MacArthur Park, you see it every day.
The head hangs low. The eyes sink. Fentanyl, over time, attacks muscle and spine, cuts people in half, twists them in knots, and buries them. In 2022, 1,910 fentanyl overdose deaths were recorded in Los Angeles County.
“People don’t want to get clean, they want to get high,” said Aaron, a fentanyl addict, in the Westlake District earlier this month.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
When the man paused in a parking lot, I approached. His face was scarred by a shotgun pattern of blood-red scabs and ulcers. This too is a common sight, and a symptom of fentanyl laced with the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine.
He said his name is Aaron and that he came to L.A. two years ago from Louisiana. He couldn’t remember what had happened to his shoes. One foot was bare, the other was sheathed in a dirty sock. He told me that when he uses fentanyl, “It’s kind of like, you just start floating outside yourself.” But then the withdrawal begins, you feel sick and need another hit.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
He was still a young man. If he had the chance, I asked, would he go into rehab and try to restart his life?
“Everybody wants to,” he said. “But is it likely? Doubt it.”
Aaron, 31, said he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When I asked what would help him and other people get clean, he said, “People don’t want to get clean. They want to get high.” It would be best, he said, to just give them prescriptions for the drugs they crave.
“I can’t deal with life sober,” he said.
A homeless man, wrapped in a blanket, walks by two men prepping a pipe for a hit of fentanyl near an alley in Westlake known for drug use.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
I’ve seen a lot of Aarons the last few months. They hang in the park, sleep on surrounding streets, huddle in the drug alley and march around in sad states of physical deterioration, stripped of all but a desire to get the next hit.
So, what’s being done about it?
The short answer is quite a bit, but not nearly enough.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the Westlake neighborhood, has scheduled a news conference for Thursday morning to announce “initiatives aimed at improving public health, safety and cleanliness at the park.”
I’ve already written about some of her programs and plans, which include cleanup crews, peace ambassadors, overdose response teams and a healthcare collaborative aimed at treating the sick and getting them into stable housing. A homeless services center is in the works too, and a tiny tot playground, torched several months ago, will be rebuilt in the new year.
All of which is commendable, but the addiction crisis in the MacArthur Park area is a public health emergency, and I feel like I’m watching the fire department stroll up to a burning building without enough personnel or tools.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.
The crisis in the MacArthur Park area remains a public health emergency despite efforts to steer homeless clients into housing and treatment.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
There was a time when people were arrested for drug possession and given the option of jail or treatment. But laws, policies and attitudes changed, and there’s a general consensus that addiction should be treated as a disease rather than a crime.
The problem is that for many of the Aarons out there, it’s not being treated at all.
Dr. Gary Tsai, who runs the substance abuse prevention and control division of L.A. County’s Department of Public Health, said various public and nonprofit teams are targeting MacArthur Park.
The roster includes substance abuse counselors, mental health specialists, overdose prevention units and social workers who try to steer homeless clients into housing and treatment. Harm reduction teams provide clean pipes and syringes to prevent the spread of disease while trying to build relationships that might lead to treatment.
“I think we all want faster results,” Tsai said, but he pointed out that overdose deaths have plateaued as services have been scaled up.
Unfortunately, fentanyl is powerfully addictive, further complicating what was already a staggering nationwide challenge: Only about a quarter of the nearly 50 million people with an addiction issue get treatment. And for those not in treatment, Tsai said, 95% “are not interested or don’t perceive a need for those services.”
My colleague Emily Alpert Reyes reported earlier this year on Tsai’s strategies to “get more people in the door” of treatment programs and keep them there. That means lowering barriers to service and relaxing zero-tolerance rules for clients who lapse. Tsai has also been working to scale up the use of medications that help reduce drug cravings.
A man is slumped over 7th Street, about a block from Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant, in the MacArthur Park area.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
No doubt, a lot of drug users will benefit from those approaches. But UCLA psychologist and addiction specialist Richard Rawson said some people — particularly those using multiple drugs and possibly dealing with a mental condition as well — are severely incapacitated and “are not capable of making a decision to enter treatment.”
“If you have somebody who is actively using drugs … and you want to make sure they use a clean needle, and have Narcan so they don’t die, and their wounds are treated — all of those harm reduction things are absolutely invaluable,” Rawson said.
“But when you have someone who becomes so incapacitated that they can’t stand up … to say that you’re just going to provide them with harm reduction and hope they don’t die, I think that falls short of the responsibility we have to each other and to the sickest people.”
He thinks policymakers have to figure out a way to walk a fine line, respecting people’s civil rights while recognizing “how vulnerable they are to dying.” And if they’re gravely ill, some form of coercive action might be called for.
“We need to have a way of saying these folks really need to be helped and moved into treatment,” Rawson said. “Not jail, but some kind of health facility where we can initiate treatment and help them get their brain back to making voluntary decisions and working on the next steps.”
Outreach specialist Catalina Hinojosa gets a hug from Barron Gay at the MacArthur Park Metro station. Gay is trying to find housing for his family.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Catalina Hinojosa, a former meth user who went to prison and now leads an outreach team that tries to talk drug users into housing and treatment, told me she’d favor more coercive strategies.
She leads a Christ-Centered Ministries team that works at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station, scanning the platform from 7 to 9 each morning for clients, and often meeting with resistance from the most severely addicted people.
“They need somebody to make decisions for them, because they can’t make them for themselves,” said Hinojosa, who told me she is grateful she went to prison because it forced her to rethink her life and get help.
Lately, she has been frustrated by one particular client she managed to house, who resists treatment for her fentanyl addiction. “This girl is a third my age, and she looks my age,” said Hinojosa, who tries to get her clients’ attention by telling them about all the users who are “falling out,” her term for dying.
This echoes the decades-long conversation in California about severe mental illness and involuntary treatment. Some argue that forced treatment wouldn’t be needed if there were adequate care and preventive measures in place.
But there aren’t, and people continue to suffer, wasting away in public view.
Lighters and drug paraphernalia lie on the ground in MacArthur Park after police told suspected drug users to empty their pockets.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
The same is happening with addiction. Even with all the teams working the MacArthur Park area, there isn’t enough to meet the need.
The shocking daily parade of human misery is a massive, deeply rooted catastrophe, and Councilmember Hernandez herself has cited critical shortages of needed resources. Making a difference would require far more prevention, intervention, treatment and something traditionally lacking from local leaders — consistent, long-term, coordinated follow-up.
Effective rehab isn’t a drive-through experience. It’s a years-long commitment.
But there are enough success stories to hold out hope, and to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
I spoke to 35-year-old Andrew, who is one year into a residential rehab program at Beacon House in San Pedro after fighting depression and addiction to alcohol, cocaine and fentanyl for most of his life.
“It took me 20 years to get here,” he said, “but now I don’t feel like I want to kill myself every day.”
People huddle in a group in an area of MacArthur Park known for drug use.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
In the parking lot where I met Aaron, he told me he had overdosed and been revived with Narcan roughly 20 times. A guy named James, 41, pushed his bike up next to us and was eavesdropping on our conversation, so I asked if he had any thoughts on how to address the drug epidemic.
“Mandatory detox,” said James.
I asked what he does.
“I’m an addict,” James said. His drug is crystal meth, not fentanyl, which he considers more destructive.
“I’ve seen multiple people die out here,” James said, and something more forceful has to be done to put an end to the madness. “Within like five to 10 days … a happy-go-lucky kid comes to L.A., and then a week later, no shoes. And he’s dead.”
