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S. Bay starts listening tour
Church St. biz vacancies
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Gondoliers
Banarama is back
The
www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Vol. 48 • No. 6 • February 8-14, 2018
API Wellness announces name change
SF health panel backs safe injection sites
by Seth Hemmelgarn
by Liz Highleyman
A
San Franc i s co - b a s e d nonprofit known for providing health services to the city’s Asian and Pacific Islander LGBT community and residents of the TenJane Philomen Cleland derloin neighborhood has changed its Lance Toma name. Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center launched its new name – San Francisco Community Health Center – January 26 at its 30th anniversary Pearl Gala. “Since our beginnings over 30 years ago, API Wellness has always stood for quality health care rooted in social justice for Asian and Pacific Islander communities and all marginalized communities,” said Executive Director Lance Toma in response to emailed questions this week. “With our newest transformation two years ago as a federally See page 16 >>
DA’s office praised for pot action by Sari Staver
C
annabis activists are cheering the January 31 announcement that the San Francisco District Attorney’s office will remove or reduce previous criminal convictions Rick Gerharter from all records in San Francisco Supe- District Attorney rior Court, dating George Gascón back to 1975. The announcement, made by District Attorney George Gascón at a news conference, is a retroactive application of Proposition 64, the 2016 voter initiative legalizing the possession and use of cannabis by adults over age 21. Prop 64 also allows people with convictions to petition courts to dismiss their cases, but many were unaware that they qualified for resentencing or were unable to afford to bring such a petition, said Gascón. The new program See page 16 >>
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Rick Gerharter
Powwow draws two spirits
T
he Grand Entry of dancers into the arena kicked off the seventh annual Bay Area American Indian TwoSpirits Powwow, held February 3 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The event,
an educational and spiritual gathering open to all, celebrated fluid gender roles and diverse native cultures that were represented. For more information about BAAITS, visit http://www.baaits.org/.
he San Francisco Health Commission unanimously backed a resolution supporting supervised injection services at its February 6 meeting, putting the city one step closer to opening the first safe Liz Highleyman injection facility in the San Francisco United States. Health “This gives San Commissioner Francisco the op- Cecilia Chung portunity to lead listens to again just like we did comments on syringe access during Tuesday’s programs,” Commis- meeting. sioner Cecilia Chung, an HIV-positive trans woman, said after the vote. “We are not endorsing drugs, but we are letting the public know this is a sound public health decision.” San Francisco is home to an estimated
CA bill would extend caps on drug costs for PWAs, others
by Seth Hemmelgarn
G
ay state Senator Scott Wiener introduced a bill this week that would permanently extend drug-pricing protections for people who are living with HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The legislation, which hadn’t been numbered as of Tuesday, would eliminate the sunset of Assembly Bill 339, the law that caps a person’s out-of-pocket costs for a prescription at $250 every 30 days. It would also make permanent formulary standards that keep insurers from routinely placing specialty drugs in their highest pricing tiers. AB 339’s provisions are set to expire at the end of 2019. Gay former Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park) authored that bill. “Before AB 339 went into effect, California residents with serious and chronic conditions like cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and lupus were particularly vulnerable to higher out-of-pocket costs for their medication,” according to Wiener’s office. “Specialty prescription drugs were placed on the highest tier in the drug pricing formulary, and consumers often were paying $6,000 in one month alone for badly needed medication.”
Rick Gerharter
State Senator Scott Wiener
In a call with the Bay Area Reporter, Wiener (D-San Francisco) said, “Given the federal attacks on health care access, it’s even more important now for California to protect health care consumers,” and extending the co-pay limits “is critically important.”
See page 14 >>
“Frankly, I would like to see these caps even lower than $250 per prescription per month,” he said. That amount “is still high, but it’s much, much better than what we were seeing before, which was people having to pay thousands of dollars for a monthly supply of life-saving drugs.” Wiener said he first became aware of the issue when he served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where he represented the Castro and other neighborhoods in District 8. Constituents living with HIV were telling him of prescriptions refills that were costing them more than $1,000, and people were worried about dying because they couldn’t afford the high prices. Wiener held a hearing on the issue in 2015, around the same time Gordon introduced AB 339. Health Access California is sponsoring Wiener’s bill, of which lesbian Senator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) will be a co-author. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, APLA Health, and Project Inform are supporting the bill, according to Wiener’s office. Anthony Wright, Health Access California’s Executive Director, told the B.A.R., “We want to prevent the extreme cost sharing that leads people to skip medications or otherwise not get medications that they need.”t
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