Rick Campbell, who was a police officer in Oceanside, California, for over 10 years, has a message for Governor Gavin Newsom on the spiraling drug addiction in the state, bluntly telling him that “There aren’t words to describe the horrors I saw.”

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Campbell is contending that affordable housing will not handle the issue and is not the reason that so many people are winding up homeless on the streets in the state.

The former officer just recently wrote an op-ed in Newsweek detailing how California’s progressive crime policies are making rampant drug use and homelessness worse.

“Lack of affordable housing is a problem, but it’s not why we have such a huge increase in homeless camps and mentally ill people in California,” he wrote for Newsweek. “I believe we have a massive drug addiction crisis, and no longer any tools to force anybody to change.”

“We also have a huge mental health crisis and no tools to force them into treatment. Meth use and mental illness are peas in a pod. So many of the people I took in for mental health holds — a 5150 — told me their mental health deteriorated when they started using the drug… There aren’t words to describe the horrors I saw. And yet, in my opinion, civil rights advocates continue to stand in the way of reform,” Campbell asserted.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sent the California Highway Patrol and National Guard to San Francisco to help curb the crippling fentanyl crisis.

Former San Francisco police officer Joel Aylworth says the move is “all politicking.” pic.twitter.com/JwTtyom8tT

— Mariana (@lonestarherd) May 1, 2023

He told “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday that Prop 36, which was passed in 2000, offered drug offenders the option of drug courts as an alternative to prison time.

“If people were caught [with] simple possession for meth, heroin or cocaine, they’d be offered the option for treatment via drug court rather than going to prison,” Campbell told Fox News co-host Bill Hemmer. “But they have this felony charge hanging over their head, so it was kind of like instead of all carrot begging people to stop using drugs and use treatment, there was also kind of a stick there which was necessary to motivate them.”

“Quite a few people chose prison instead of drug court. They loved meth more than anything, and for them, six months inside wasn’t a big deal—they could still obtain drugs while incarcerated,” he wrote in Newsweek. “I was frequently told by those I arrested that it’s very easy to “keister” drugs—hide them in their butt—to get them inside prison when full-body scanners aren’t used to screen for it.”

Former California cop sends powerful message to Gavin Newsom: There are no words for the horrors I saw This police officer is correct. People that are told to take responsibility for their lives and know they will face consequences avoid destructive behavior. The

— AnnieBElder (@Annie201Oakley) June 16, 2023

“great society” under LBJ, the normalization of failure under the guise of empathy does become the gateway to drug abuse, financial insecurity, crime, homelessness, depression, and mental illness.

— AnnieBElder (@Annie201Oakley) June 16, 2023

In 2014, Californians voted to enact Prop 47, which Campbell says in effect tied the hands of law enforcement officials who sought to clean up the streets.

“All those felony charges for drugs were reduced to misdemeanors, and now the police out here can simply write people a ticket,” he pointed out. “They aren’t able to book them into jail when they have drugs in San Diego County.”

Newsom told Fox News host Sean Hannity this week that he takes responsibility for the state’s spiraling homelessness. He cited his $15 billion plan to get the homeless into secure housing.

(Video Credit: Fox News)

“The state of California was not involved in the homeless issue. We got involved. We’re holding cities and counties accountable,” he speciously claimed. “I’m suing cities when they’re not producing housing. I want accountability. I take responsibility for this.”

“This is personal to me, I love this state and I don’t like what’s happening with the encampments,” Newsom remarked.

Campbell thinks that Newsom’s efforts are misdirected.

Former Oceanside police officer Rick Campbell argues that lack of affordable housing is not the cause of California’s homeless crisis, but rather the state’s progressive crime policies. #HomelessCrisis #California #DrugCrisis https://t.co/xWr9RI0qLq

— California Republican Assembly (@cragop) June 16, 2023

“We now have a multi-billion dollar deficit in our state, and yet they’re going to continue to spend billions trying to provide carrots to get people off the street,” he said concerning Newsom’s expensive plan.

“Newsom did come up with the CARE court idea that they’re trying to implement out here. I don’t think that it’s going to be fully successful, but we’ll see,” he added. “I do think that he is trying, but so far, there have not been significant results.”

Fifty percent of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population lives in California according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That means there are approximately 171,521 unsheltered homeless residents in the Golden State. One-third of the nation’s entire homeless population lives in California, according to Fox News.

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