A New Look at the Drug Gangs That Rule the Streets of San Francisco

I’ve written before about my father relating to me a weekend he spent with some Army buddies in San Francisco, late in 1945. He described that city as a marvel: Clean, prosperous, safe, and fascinating. 

I’ve also written before about how the one primary task of government, any government at any level, is to protect the liberty and property of the citizens. Well, today, in San Francisco, the city is no longer clean, prosperous, safe, or fascinating, and the local government is failing to protect the liberty and property of the citizens. A recent City Journal investigation has revealed that a Honduran gang, the “Hondos,” has not only cornered the illegal drug market in much of the city, but has effectively taken control, reducing the city’s Tenderloin district to anarchy.

If you’re looking to score hard drugs on the streets of San Francisco, the Hondos are your best bet. In 2022, former San Francisco mayor London Breed seemed to admit as much in a radio interview, saying that “a lot” of the city’s drug dealers were Honduran. Her comments sparked a wave of backlash from Latino activists, with one local group denouncing the remarks as “xenophobic and racist.” Soon after, Breed was pressured into issuing a public apology.

But Breed was right. Gangs of migrants, primarily from Honduras and supplied by Mexican cartels, run the fentanyl trade in San Francisco. In 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Hondurans had “taken over the sale of [fentanyl]” in the city’s “[open-air markets].” Last year, an article in the Harvard Law Review stated that “nearly all” low-level fentanyl and meth dealers prosecuted as part of a federal sentencing program were “Honduran men without legal status in the United States.”

So, the Tenderloin has become a witch’s brew of homelessness, drug sales and addiction, and illegal immigration. This reveals the Breed administration’s efforts to clean things up as too little, too late.

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And it gets worse.

On our last night in the Tenderloin, we studied a Honduran crew peddling drugs at the corner of 6th Street and Market. Homeless addicts clustered around them as they processed a steady stream of hand-to-hand sales. As we learned, these crews are well-organized. This one had a shot caller, multiple dealers, two spotters stationed a half-a-block down the street, and a homeless drug mule who held onto the product.

As we approached the crew, one of the Hondos—a young man who appeared to be in his early twenties and, according to our translator, claimed to be from Puerto Rico but couldn’t answer basic questions about it and spoke with a Honduran accent—offered to sell us fentanyl. He stood on the sidewalk and nodded at us as we walked up, saying, “how much?” in between puffs on his cigar.

That’s pretty brazen for someone who is almost certainly in the country illegally. And visualize what’s described here; streams of homeless people buying a dangerous drug from well-organized criminal gangs, and effectively nothing being done about it. This isn’t a place where the law-abiding should even consider entering, much less living in; the city has surrendered the Tenderloin to the gang.

Further down the block, a second dealer offered to sell us “ISO,” or isotonitazene, a new drug up to nine times stronger than fentanyl. “How much you got?” he asked one of us. “I’ll give you a gram for $30.”

We also spoke with a dealer nicknamed “Cricket.” Cricket indicated that he was a Mexican national who had illegally crossed into the United States three years ago. “In five minutes, I was already on the other side,” he told our translator.

Even more brazen. This “Cricket” admitted to entering the country illegally, to remaining in the country illegally. There’s no indication when he entered the country illegally, but smart money would indicate that he did so during the four years of the Biden administration’s non-enforcement of border laws. 

This is, perhaps, the worst observation described:

Soon after, a San Francisco police cruiser pulled up to the corner of 6th Street and Market. An officer parked the cruiser near a bus stop and flipped on its red and blue lights. Almost immediately, the dealers began to disperse, walking away down the sidewalk. After a few minutes, the officer turned off the lights and drove off, having never stepped out of the vehicle. Seconds later, the dealers turned around and set up shop at the corner again.

As mentioned: Non-enforcement. Now, one officer in a cruiser isn’t going to clean this mess up, but is that really the best response that the city of San Francisco can muster? It would seem like a SWAT team backed up by fire trucks and water cannons, followed by an ICE sweep, would be a more appropriate response.

And all this is literally killing people. Since fentanyl became the street drug of choice in San Francisco, overdose deaths have skyrocketed, and this City Journal investigation doesn’t indicate that things are about to get any better.

The primary purpose of legitimate government, anywhere, at any level, is to protect the liberty and property of the citizens. In this, San Francisco and California have, once again, utterly failed. Until such a time as this problem is addressed – by not electing soft-headed Democrats to city and state offices – this problem will only get worse, and a place that was once one of the great cities of the world will continue to decay into chaos.

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.

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