Officials discussed the future of San Francisco’s Drug Court Thursday, as its case loads have ballooned while staffing has remained low, and DA Jenkins says the court’s decision to allow violent offenders was “destructive to the program.”

As SFist reported in January, the Drug Court has evolved into something much different than officials intended when it was established in 1995. Initially set up as a diversion program supporting nonviolent drug offenders struggling with addiction, the court’s aim was to keep them out of jail and court — and away from situations that led to their offenses.

The court later expanded in 2018 to allow offenders with mental health disorders. Since then, the number of cases have not only ballooned, the court is now allowing criminals who’ve been charged with violent crimes, including “attempted murder, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon,” as the Chronicle first reported.

According to the Chronicle, city officials held a hearing Thursday discussing the future of the Drug Court. While the number of people enrolled in the drug treatment program through the court has grown to 420 people, the Department of Public Health can only take on 260 people, forcing many to wait in jail for months, particularly those who need specialized treatment or don’t speak English.

SF District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the expansion of the court to allow “violent and dangerous offenders” has been “destructive to the program,” as fewer than half of the court participants successfully complete the program, per the Chronicle.

Proponents of the Drug Court spoke in its defense and called for more personnel in order to better meet the needs of its defendants.

“Drug court provides not just treatment, it provides a community,” said Anita Nabha, an attorney with the Public Defender’s office who oversees the court.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Chair of the Public Safety Committee who’s also in recovery for addiction, calls the Drug Court a valuable tool for recovery. He reportedly touched on the challenges of tracking the Drug Court’s recidivism rate, as multiple agencies are involved in the process.

Previously: Sup Dorsey’s Latest Crusade Is to Hold Hearings Into Whether SF Drug Court Is Getting Too Lenient

Image: San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

• American Indian and Alaska Native residents in California, Oregon, Arizona, and New Mexico can now access traditional healing practices through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Although the California pilot program only applies to people experiencing substance abuse, it's expected to expand to cover all qualified patients. [Tribune News Service]
• The levels of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere are increasing much more rapidly than in previous years. The average growth rate increased by 3.5 ppm in 2024 compared to 2.4 ppm in 2023 and 2.57 ppm per year over the prior decade. [Live Science]
• Here’s a list of No King’s Day rallies across the Bay Area — San Francisco’s meet-ups include Sue Bierman Park near Embarcadero Plaza as well as the human banner at Ocean Beach followed by Sunset Dunes Park. [ KGO]
• A Michigan woman won $100,00 in Powerball lottery winnings after consulting ChatGBT on which numbers to choose. [NBC Bay Area]

• Authorities arrested one suspect and are looking for a second in connection with a home invasion robbery and shooting in Vacaville Thursday around 2 pm. [KPIX]
• The family of Amin Noroozi, a 17-year-old athlete from Lafayette who died in April after he broke his neck at Stinson Beach, is suing John Muir Health Medical Center in Walnut Creek for gross negligence. [Bay Area News Group]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

• New research from Stanford University has determined that wildfire smoke is the most detrimental consequence of climate change on Americans' health. Forty thousand Americans are killed by wildfire smoke per year, and the number is projected at 70,000 per year by 2050. [KQED]
• Santa Rosa police arrested Felix Carreon, 50, and Robert McConlogue, 46, both from Sebastopol, in connection with the fatal shooting of Mollie Schefer, 47, at her home in Santa Rosa September 9. One of Shefer’s dogs was also killed, and a second dog was suffering from a gunshot wound. [KRON4]

• A new addiction recovery facility called Wells Place will soon be opening in SF’s Marina District at the former Marina Inn location at Octavia and Lombard streets. Residents at the facility, which consists of double and single-occupancy rooms with a total of 60 beds, will be required to go to school or work while at the facility. [NBC Bay Area]

• The Cupertino Whole Foods, which was shut down in April due to multiple pest infestations, passed its inspection and is set to reopen its doors September 29. [KPIX]
• Three parks in the East Bay town of Antioch — Contra Loma Estates Park, Marchetti Park, and Jacobsen Park — are getting major upgrades, which were largely funded by a $2.95 million grant through Proposition 68. [Bay Area News Group]
• Juan Aguilar, 44, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on August 29 for the human trafficking, rape, and forcible oral copulation of a 15-year-old girl whom he kidnapped from Honduras and trafficked from his San Leandro home for two years. [Bay Area News Group]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

For the last two years, SF General Hospital has been proactively trying to limit ER visits and public episodes among meth users by providing them with an anti-psychotic drug called Olanzapine that’s being called “the next Narcan” for stimulant addiction.

There’s been plenty of discussion of fentanyl’s role in the San Francisco overdose crisis of recent years, and rightly so, as 80% of fatal overdose victims in the city last year had been using fentanyl. But methamphetamine is still the drug that’s landing users in emergency rooms at rates higher than other narcotics. According to a recently published research paper in the International Journal of Drug Policy, 47% of visits to SF General Hospital's Psychiatric Emergency Services department “were related to methamphetamine use.”  

That same study noted that the SF Department of Public Health (SFDPH) started giving repeat meth-using visitors something called “Methamphetamine Assist Packs,” also known as "chill packs" The Chronicle this week examines the effectiveness of “chill packs” for meth users — these “chill packs” actually being four doses of an anti-psychotic drug called Olanzapine (commercially known as Zyprexa), which is normally used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

The SFDPH, which has apparently been handing out the drug to meth users for about two years, declined to comment for the Chronicle’s article. But the International Journal of Drug Policy study’s lead author, Dr. Phillip Coffin of SFDPH, has called Olanzapine “the next Narcan” for treating the effects of meth addiction.

The study found that emergency room visits decreased by 32% among those who’d been given the so-called chill packs. The authors concluded that “Methamphetamine Assist Packs were associated with fewer psychiatric emergency visits for six months after receipt, and represent a promising intervention to address acute psychiatric toxicity from methamphetamine.”

In some ways, this was not a proper study. It did not involve a control group, there were no placebos, and no interviews with patients on their use of the pills. Dr. Coffin has stated publicly that he’d like to do proper clinical trials on the topic in the near future.

Related: So-Called ‘Speedball’ Mixtures of Fentanyl and Stimulants Now Account for Most SF Overdose Deaths [SFist]

Image: Raining (talk) via Wikimedia Commons

A San Francisco Supervisor has some new proposed legislation that would pay an extra $100/week incentive to city welfare recipients if they are in substance-abuse treatment and succeed in staying clean.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey announced proposed legislation Monday, dubbed "Cash Not Drugs," that would a $100 each week to recipients of the County Adult Assistance Program (CAPP) who have been diagnosed with a substance use disorder and referred to treatment, and who voluntarily test negative for illicit drugs.

The approach, more carrot than stick, appears to be a revised approach to drug-testing welfare recipients as a condition of receiving public assistance. Breed got some flack last fall for proposing just that, and a ballot measure, Prop F, was subsequently approved by voters in March that seemed to codify such a requirement — a vote that may outside San Francisco saw as symbolic of the city's shift to the right, politically. But, as we reported in May, it turns out they're not forcibly drug-testing anyone. It's more of an honor system, with a questionnaire, and it launches on January 1, 2025.

If Dorsey's latest legislation passes, it would turn Prop F into an incentivized drug-testing effort.

"A humane and effective approach to San Francisco’s drug crisis must include rewarding good behavior, and not solely punishing bad behavior," Dorsey said in a statement. "Cash Not Drugs is a contingency management program that adopts the most studied and successful public health interventions we know to help those who struggle with addiction."

Dorsey continued, "By incentivizing and supporting long-term recovery, Cash Not Drugs won’t just help lives, but change lives for the better."

"The drug crisis we are facing requires different strategies to get people into treatment, in addition to the important enforcement work happening in our neighborhoods," said Breed in her own statement. "Contingency management is an important tool that has proven to be effective here in San Francisco, and Cash Not Drugs will help support getting more people into treatment and address the conditions we see on our streets."

Breed added, in comments at City Hall Monday to a rally of dozens of recovering addicts, per the Chronicle, "I want to make it just as easy to get treatment as it is to go out there and buy dope. Whatever it takes to get people on the right path — that’s what we need to do.”

"Cash Not Drugs" calls to mind former Mayor Gavin Newsom's "Care Not Cash" initiative from the early aughts, which sought to reduce monthly general assistance grants in favor of providing service vouchers — which itself was aimed at reducing public assistance for the drug addicted and homeless, and encouraging treatment.

Trent Rhorer, executive director of the cityʼs Human Services Agency, addressed this measure with regard to Prop F, in a statement, saying, "When voters passed Proposition F by a large margin last March, they sent a strong message that they believed single adults on public assistance, who face significantly higher risks for substance use disorders, should be clinically assessed and offered opportunities for treatment."

Related: SF’s New ‘Drug Screening for Welfare’ Law Not as Harsh as Advertised, Basically Just an Honor System

We’ve all observed the tell-tale sign that someone is high on fentanyl in that they’re bent over and frozen in the so-called “fentanyl fold,” and a new Chronicle report speaks to medical experts and users about why this happens.

The most troubling aspect of San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis is the more than 800 people who died from drug overdoses last year, and of those, around 80% involved the use of the deadly opioid fentanyl. This is a national problem, and not at all exclusive to San Francisco.

But given the national media obsession with bashing San Francisco, it’s frequently pointed out that fentanyl users are often hunched over on SF streets. This too happens in other cities across the US, but there’s a lot of media focus on calling out SF for it, as seen in the Sky News report below on the “drug-ravaged Tenderloin.”

Today’s Chronicle takes a semi-scientific look into why people slouch over when using fentanyl. Turns out this happens to some degree with many other opioids, like heroin and oxycodone — the so-called "nod" one gets in an initial high. But since much of the fentanyl supply has become exponentially more powerful than heroin, the slouching effect is most pronounced with fentanyl.

“What you’re witnessing is the balance point between passing out,” UCSF professor of addiction medicine Dr. Daniel Ciccarone told the Chronicle. “When you lose all muscular control and are on the floor – versus some small remnant of consciousness that is keeping the person up-right.”

The "fentanyl fold" effect can reportedly kick in within two or three minutes after taking the drug. And oddly, users report the feeling is actually somewhat euphoric.

The Chronicle also spoke to several fentanyl users about the slouch, which gives insight into how people end up using the drug on the streets. One 50-year-old user Jeff Barlow had been a school teacher and motocross racing hobbyist, and required surgery after an accident. That got him hooked on painkillers, and he’s now on the streets of SF, sometimes slouched.

“You don’t even know you’re like that,” Barlow said to the Chronicle.

“It’s like falling asleep in class,” he added. “You blink your eyes and 20 minutes go by. You’re kind of half-in and half-out of consciousness.”

Yes, this can cause spinal disorders, as well as neck and back issues. The cruel irony is that some people use fentanyl for pain relief, which it provides in the short term, but the slouching can aggravate these medical issues in the long run.  

“I take it because it helps with the pain on my knee and my foot,” user Frederick Smith told the Chronicle. “But it makes everything worse.”

ABC 7 did a similar story in March about why fentanyl causes this particular bent-over reaction. One user they spoke to, who had taken the drug hours earlier but remained bent over, was asked if he was able to stand up straight. "I mean, I can, but it hurts a lot to have to do that," he said.

Researchers still don't know if fentanyl causes long-term effects on the spine, however there are signs that it causes major systemic and circulation issues. As ABC 7 learned from researchers, the thinking is that the acidic nature of the drug leads to the collapsing of veins. Additionally, fentanyl that is mixed with "tranq" or xylazine has been shown to cause terrible skin ulcers that can become infected.

Related: Walgreens Now Selling Cheaper Generic Narcan Over the Counter, and It’s Already Available [SFist]

Image: @citizenj17 via Twitter

"SF is a city of compassion, but we also need accountability," Mayor London Breed said on Tuesday, announcing a new proposed policy of withholding cash assistance payments to addicts unless they agree to undergo drug treatment.

The three individuals likely to be the primary trio vying for the mayor's office in San Francisco next year, incumbent London Breed, Supervisor Ahsha Safai, and wealthy philanthropist Daniel Lurie, all made proposals today regarding how to deal with the perennial challenges of the city's streets. Safai was on KPIX early this morning talking about putting more police on foot and bike patrols on the street. Lurie made some vague suggestions about "commission reform" and compelling more mentally ill people into treatment. And Breed unveiled a new policy proposal as well.

Breed's suggestion is to add a provision to the rules around cash assistance that is given out under the County Adult Assistance Program. As the Chronicle notes, all California counties have assistance programs like this for the homeless and indigent, though San Francisco's may be one of the better funded — with $30 million handed out in 2022 in monthly grants to approximately 5,200 individuals.

Homeless individuals receive just $105 per month under the program, while those with steady housing can receive $697 per month. Two decades ago, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom got a new ordinance approved by voters which was nicknamed Care Not Cash, and it was under that program that cash payments to the homeless decreased — with shelter beds and other services offered instead.

Breed is proposing adding drug screening to the assistance approval process, which some supervisors are going to balk at when this comes up for a vote — and perhaps this will be something we'll be seeing on the 2024 ballot if they do.

"We will continue to support those struggling with addiction who are seeking help, and those who refuse to enroll in services should no longer receive county-funded cash assistance," Breed said in a statement on X.

Speaking to the Chronicle, Breed said, "We need to make a significant change. No more 'anything goes' without accountability, no more handouts without accountability."

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, a Breed ally, tells the paper that such "coercive interventions can work," while Board of Supervisor President Aaron Peskin characterizes the proposal as Breed "grasping for a political lifeline."

As KPIX reports, Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Raphael Mandelman have expressed their early support for the proposal. Breed made the proposal announcement a press conference Tuesday, also attended by Dorsey and Trent Rhorer from the San Francisco Human Services Agency, which distributes the assistance grants. ABC 7 has some footage from that event.

Peskin also gave a quote to KPIX as well saying, "If she can't find the way to prevent several hundred brazen criminals from selling deadly drugs — how does she think she will find the resources to drug test thousands of welfare recipients?"

Breed's proposal, which is likely to stir up controversy, comes at a time when the city is on track to see 850 overdose deaths this year, or around 70 per month. It also comes months after a policy of arresting drug users for public intoxication and drug possession has reportedly failed to get many — or any — people into drug treatment programs.

But while this could spell a political win for Breed, as Care Not Cash did for Newsom way back when, it's not likely to have the support of addiction and treatment professionals.

One expert in addiction medicine, Ryan Marino, who is an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University, tells the Chronicle, "The evidence says coercive 'treatment' (forced treatments, incarceration, etc.) of substance use — after almost a century of study — is literally worse than doing nothing at all for people who use drugs. They are more likely to die if you force them into treatment than if you let them keep using."

Breed gave a defiant response to these criticisms, saying to the Chronicle, "Everyone’s going to have an excuse for why we shouldn’t do this. And at the end of the day, at this point, as far as I’m concerned, we’re going to do everything we can to move forward and to get people into treatment, controversial or not."

So, in all likelihood, we can expect to see something like this proposal on the ballot when it comes time to vote for mayor in November 2024.

Related: Mayor London Breed Posts Video of Encampment Clearing Operation On Willow Street, Says City Is 'Working Hard'

People struggling with meth or cocaine addiction can earn up to $599 in gift cards to stay away from the stuff under a news state program, and San Francisco is one of the participating counties.

The New York Times reports today on an innovative, first-in-the-nation program that will pay meth and cocaine users to stay clean. That report details that this pilot program is available to residents suffering from stimulant use disorder (meth or cocaine addiction) in four California counties, but San Francisco is one of them. And a July report from CalMatters notes that Zuckerberg General Hospital is participating, though you do have to be enrolled in MediCal to enroll in this program that pays up to $599 to stay off the stimulants.

“It’s really a brave choice of California to try this against potential backlash and misunderstanding,” California Health Care Foundation associate director Catherine Teare tells the Times. “This isn’t going to solve it,” she adds, “but I think it’s well worth trying.”

As we’ve mentioned before, San Francisco is on pace for its deadliest year ever for accidental drug overdoses. And according to the California Health Care Foundation, meth-related emergency room visits increased 50% between 2018 and 2020. The notion of paying people to stay clean has proven effective, as a 2021 paper published in JAMA Psychiatry found that 80% of such clinically administered programs did reduce drug use.

One does need to be diagnosed with a stimulant use disorder to participate. Once enrolled, you basically pee in a cup to prove you’ve spent the week clean. The first clean test yields a $10 gift card. The value of the card gradually increases to up to $26.50 a week, and recipient max out at $599, because beyond that, it’s taxable income.

The program could cost the state up to $50 million, though the feds are covering the cost.

But why aren’t we doing this for fentanyl, which is causing the largest number of overdose deaths? Because fentanyl is an opioid, and there are targeted, pharmaceutical treatment therapies for opioid addiction. There are no such medical treatments for methamphetamine or cocaine addiction, so the state is hoping the $10-$26 gift cards may prove therapeutically useful.

Related: Someone Died From an Overdose Inside the Mid-Market Whole Foods That Just Closed [SFist]Image: MeNotMeth.org

Photo: Karen Mower/Getty Images

Every conversation about San Francisco's homeless problem needs to include an understanding of the growing injection drug problem that's affecting not only our city, but many around the nation in recent years. Addiction, and in particular heroin addiction, is largely responsible for a hefty percentage of the root causes of homelessness here, and the Chronicle's Heather Knight recently sat down with Dr. Barry Zevin, the medical director of San Francisco's Homeless Outreach Team to understand this better. Zevin has done over two decades of work with the City's Department of Health, and he's therefore a font of information about the drug epidemic that plagues much of our local homeless population.

Zevin and his team treat approximately 1,000 homeless people annually, 75 percent of whom are addicted to heroin. And the number of heroin users seeking treatment in San Francisco has been on the rise for at least three years, with a 15 percent uptick between 2014 and 2015 alone.

First things first — let's get the terminology straight. According to the 55-year-old Bernal Heights doctor, "injection drugs" is actually the preferred term over "intravenous drugs" these days, given that many users no longer have functioning veins they're injecting the drugs into.

"People might be using heroin for 20 years, and the really pleasant part of it might have been the first few months and then another 19½ years is a kind of misery," explained Zevin.

Zevin also talks about something you've likely heard about, or seen a recent documentary about on HBO: The nation has the over-prescription of opioid painkillers to blame for the current heroin epidemic, as drug cartels began selling cheap heroin in the US in recent years, with many of the buyers being opioid addicts who couldn't afford prescription pills anymore.

A post shared by Antoine RMS (@antoinerms) on Feb 26, 2017 at 7:43am PST

Zevin credits the recently rapid construction growth and development within the city as one of the main reasons that heroin use is taking place so blatantly out in the open. Drug users used to have empty lots and abandoned buildings in which to hide and use. San Francisco real estate is too valuable to be left empty these days, and those heroin users have no choice but to spill out onto the streets.

Further, Zevin notes that around San Francisco's Civic Center, one sees a lot of use of both heroin and methamphetamine, which he calls "a relatively unusual combination of drugs" compared to other city centers around the country. "Drug use is very local," he says, adding that around the Tenderloin more people may be using meth as a way to stay awake at night and avoid rousting by police.

In 2016, we heard about the huge uptick in the use of the overdose-antidote drug naloxone by police and first-responders on the streets of SF, in response to the growing heroin epidemic, and this means that potentially hundreds of heroin users' lives have been saved — though their burden on the city's emergency services continues.

As one might imagine, Zevin is a proponent of safe injection sites (a concept that's receiving a new push via the Board of Supervisors, as we discussed here last week.) "So yeah, someplace different — clean, safer, with services that come with it and entry into treatment — I am definitely supportive of."

Knight's whole Q&A with Zevin is worth your eyeballs.

Related: City Drug-Injection Sites Endorsed By Department Of Public Health Director

The story about a "life-saving mission" by a Bay Area opioid addiction specialist who was intending to treat Prince just one day prior to his death has grown, with the New York Times delving further late Wednesday into the root cause of Prince's alleged addiction: a hip problem that led to surgery in the mid-2000s. Now TMZ is blaring the headline that Andrew Kornfeld, the son of addiction doctor Howard Kornfeld, could face charges for transporting a quantity of the drug buprenorphine, or Suboxone, across state lines.

We learned yesterday that the younger Kornfeld flew out to Minnesota a day ahead of his father, only to arrive at Paisley Park to discover a lifeless Prince, alongside two of Prince's staff, in an elevator on the property. Kornfeld was the person who made the 911 call, and Prince was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m. on April 21, 19 minutes after emergency responders arrived. It's been widely reported that Prince had suffered an opioid overdose just six days before, on April 15, on board a private plane which then had to make an emergency landing in Indiana so he could receive a life-saving dose of naloxone, or Narcan.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting via a source close to the investigation that the drug Percocet was in fact found in Prince's system at the time of his death, even though official toxicology results could still be weeks away. The paper notes that the Drug Enforcement Agency and the US attorney’s office have joined local investigators following the revelation about Kornfeld's involvement, though his lawyer stated Wednesday that Andrew Kornfeld arrived too late to administer any drug.

It seems likely that emergency responders were unable to revive Prince with Narcan this time because he was already dead, and that the overdose had occurred too long before they arrived, though that has not been confirmed. It is recommended that Narcan be used within 30 minutes of a possible overdose.

Dr. Howard Kornfeld spoke exclusively with the SF Chronicle Wednesday, not about Prince's case, but in an effort, he said, to raise awareness about the epidemic of opioid addiction. "If this disease was not stigmatized, patients would seek care earlier and there would be less deaths," he tells the paper. "This isn’t a problem that should be solved by commercial industry. This is a national epidemic that needs to be prioritized, just as the AIDS epidemic was prioritized."

While some addiction treatment centers advocate for drug-free treatment, it's notable that the respected Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Minnesota added Suboxone to its treatment program for opioid addiction in 2013. As the Star Tribune explains, the drug helps limit cravings among addicts, and "Since that time, the number of opioid addicts dropping out of treatment early has declined from 25 percent to 5 percent."

Previously: Mill Valley Addiction Specialist Was Scheduled To Treat Prince Before His Death

Though the toxicology report has yet to be completed in the untimely death of Prince two weeks ago, a new source is confirming that the singer did in fact have a serious opioid addiction at the time of his death, as has been rumored and reported by TMZ and others. Northern California-based addiction specialist Dr. Howard Kornfeld, known to be a national authority in the treatment of opioid addiction, was contacted by Prince's team just one day before his death on April 21, and was scheduled to fly to Minnesota on April 22, as the Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting. Kornfeld's son, Andrew Kornfeld, who works with him at Recovery Without Walls in Mill Valley, CA, had actually hopped on a redeye flight to Minneapolis the night of the 20th, and arrived at Paisley Park in Chanhassen the morning Prince was found dead in an elevator. And while staff at the house was apparently too distraught, Andrew Kornfeld was the one who called 911.

As KQED explains, the elder Kornfeld's practice has been widely known for the use of buprenorphine as a replacement drug for those addicted to other opiates, because it is less dangerous and less possible to result in overdose. Unlike OxyContin, Percocet, and Vicodin, buprenorphine doesn't bring the same euphoria to patients and can apparently help wean them off the more dangerous drug they're addicted to.

Reportedly, Andrew Kornfeld, who's listed as a practice consultant on the treatment center's website but not a doctor, arrived at Prince's compound with a small amount of buprenorphine and was going to begin creating a treatment plan, however he never had the chance to administer any of the drug.

Per the Star Tribune, via the Kornfelds' attorney William Mauzy:

“The plan was to quickly evaluate his health and devise a treatment plan,” Mauzy said, speaking on behalf of the Kornfelds. “… The doctor was planning on a lifesaving mission.”
... When Andrew Kornfeld arrived at Paisley Park at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Prince’s representatives could not find him, Mauzy said. Andrew Kornfeld was one of three people at Paisley Park when the musician’s body was found in an elevator a few minutes later — and it was Andrew Kornfeld who called 911.

Mauzy said that Andrew Kornfeld told him that the others “screamed” when they found Prince and “were in too much shock” to call 911.

Unfamiliar with Paisley Park, Andrew Kornfeld simply told the dispatcher, “We’re at Prince’s house.”

Asked again to give an address, he said simply: “The people are just distraught. … We’re in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we are at the home of Prince.”

As the AP is reporting, a log of the 911 call confirms that the caller did not know the location of the house, saying it was in Minneapolis and not the suburb of Chanhassen.

The Kornfelds have apparently hired the Minneapolis-based Mauzy to represent them because there is an ongoing criminal investigation by authorities, however they have said from the outset that foul play was not suspected.

Dr. Kornfeld says he instructed Prince's team to get a local doctor to assess him as soon as they contacted him on April 20, and it was hoped that Prince would fly to California for longer-term treatment.

Kornfeld was called upon specifically because of his noted use of buprenorphine, the main ingredient in Suboxone, which is thus far uncommon in addiction treatment in the U.S., though it's been shown to be effective. As the Star Tribune explains, "The drug has been underutilized, in part, because many doctors haven’t completed the federal training that is necessary to prescribe it."

The complete toxicology report on Prince is still expected in the coming days or weeks.

Update: The New York Times elaborates on the story, discussing how he had been prescribed painkillers over a decade ago for a hip problem, for which he had surgery in the mid-2000s, followed by more pain medication.

Prince’s penchant for privacy may help explain how he kept his secret from so many. At the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall near here, where Prince was a worshiper, congregants scoffed at the first reports that Prince may have been abusing painkillers.

And rarely did he let the musicians who toured with him know how much his hips actually hurt from decades of high-voltage performances, jumping onstage in platform heels. They would only notice small things, like that he stopped doing splits.

Previously: Prince Is Dead At 57
San Francisco Fans React To Sudden, Inconceivable Death Of Prince

"One Hard-Boiled Egg" by Erik Wilson.

The folks at Uptown Almanac bring our attention to a video of a gentlemen taking candid pulls from his crack (presumably it's crack, since marijuana emits a stench that, by comparison, lingers in the air) pipe. Really, it's an astounding, not to mention ballsy, thing to do while riding a seemingly crowded N Judah train. Addiction will do remarkable things to a person, we guess. Alas.

The film was shot yesterday by YouTube user sizlinseagulsoup. Check it out below.

Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, a Fry's Electronics VP and Palo Alto resident, is being accused of stealing around $65 million in company funds to pay gambling debts. According to reports, Siddiqui is "accused of cutting side deals with some Fry's suppliers, allegedly receiving kickbacks in exchange for placing larger than normal orders at higher prices." Sounds like somebody needs a surprise meeting with Jeff VanVonderen, yes? (Speaking of Intervention, the greatest show on television, did anybody watch it last night? Jesus. Amazing. We predict swallowing 'out' and eating through a tube 'in' as next year's hottest foodie trend. God willing.)