Gary McCoy: A Reckless Advocate Unfit for San Francisco City Hall

In San Francisco’s gritty political arena, where the fentanyl crisis claims lives daily, Gary McCoy pitches himself as the ideal candidate for District 8 supervisor in 2026. A former legislative aide to Nancy Pelosi, Scott Wiener, and London Breed, McCoy markets his journey from homelessness and addiction to policy leadership at HealthRIGHT 360 as proof of his resilience. And therein lies the troubling reality: McCoy’s vindictive streak, evident in his 2022 libel lawsuit over a satirical “wanted” poster depicting him, exposes a thin-skinned temperament unfit for the bruising demands of public office. Worse, his unyielding defense of harm reduction—a model even Mayor Daniel Lurie has branded a failure—ties him to HealthRIGHT 360’s operation of safe consumption sites (SCSs), which skirt federal law under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

McCoy’s intolerance for criticism crystallized in May 2022, when he filed a $1.9 million defamation lawsuit over a meme—a mock Old West “wanted” poster first tweeted on Twitter by an anonymous account (@KarlBra47328382) and retweeted by writer Erica Sandberg to her 8,000 followers. That wanted poster accused McCoy of “the murder of drug addicts at the failed Linkage Center,” a HealthRIGHT 360-supervised SCS in the Tenderloin. McCoy’s attorney, Alex Lemberg, labeled the meme a “jaw-dropping” accusation, while he and McCoy ignored its obvious satirical intent—cartoonish fonts, exaggerated numbers, and a pseudonym evoking historical infamy. Any reasonable observer would recognize it as political parody.

Such satire is unequivocally protected speech under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court’s 1988 Falwell v. Flynt decision shields even offensive parodies targeting public figures. McCoy, a prominent figure in San Francisco’s drug policy debates, should have brushed off the Wanted poster as part of the city’s rough-and-tumble political discourse reputation. Instead, he sued Sandberg and five unnamed “Does,” alleging personal endangerment. Sandberg was dropped from the lawsuit in 2022 after Harmeet Dhillon’s firm sent a letter to McCoy demanding dismissal.

This legal overreach mirrors California’s ill-fated Assembly Bill 2836 (2024), which sought to criminalize “materially deceptive” political parodies. A federal judge struck it down in August 2025 as unconstitutional, citing its “chilling effect” on satire—a core democratic expression.  McCoy’s lawsuit, predating this federal ruling, portrays a candidate who’d rather weaponize the courts than face the Twitter/X-fueled barbs San Francisco’s supervisors endure daily. In a city where Breed faced recall threats and Wiener weathers relentless online jabs, McCoy’s fragility signals he’d immediately crumble under the slightest pressure.

McCoy’s 2022 lawsuit wasn’t just about ego—it was a desperate defense of harm reduction, a policy crumbling under San Francisco’s fentanyl epidemic. As a HealthRIGHT 360 executive, McCoy spearheaded the notorious Tenderloin Linkage Center, an “Safe Consumption Site” (SCS) providing pipes, foil, and Narcan to enable “safe” drug use without mandating treatment. The site, closed in early 2025 amid violence and absenteeism scandals, became a lightning rod for critics who argue harm reduction enables addiction and urban decay. With 460 overdose deaths from January to August 2025—outpacing 2024’s toll—the harm reduction model’s failures are undeniable. Mayor Lurie, elected partly on a cleanup platform, called harm reduction a “government failure” in his March 2025 “Breaking the Cycle” directive. He banned public distribution of safe smoking supplies.

Compounding McCoy’s latest political folly is HealthRIGHT 360’s operation of SCSs, which are unlawful under federal law. The CSA’s “crack house statute” ([21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(2)] prohibits knowingly providing spaces for illegal drug use, with penalties up to 20 years. The DOJ’s 2019 lawsuit against Philadelphia’s Safehouse SCS, upheld by the Third Circuit in 2021, confirmed this, blocking sites that facilitate controlled substance use. Now, President Trump’s July 2025 Executive Order further targeted SCSs, directing Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to defund them as “facilitating illegal drug use.” San Francisco’s Linkage Center, under McCoy’s purview, operated in this legal gray zone, avoiding direct prosecution but drawing scrutiny for enabling fentanyl use. McCoy’s refusal to acknowledge this illegality—or the site’s closure as evidence of failure—shows a reckless disregard for both law and outcomes. McCoy’s June 2025 defense of “equity” over reform ignores these realities, labeling critics as bigots (we’ve seen that before) rather than pragmatists. His alignment with HealthRIGHT 360’s legally risky SCSs, even post-closure, ties him to a model that’s both ineffective and unlawful, risking federal crackdowns while San Francisco bleeds.

By championing legally dubious programs and silencing critics through litigation, Gary McCoy reveals a dangerous blend of fragility and defiance that should disqualify him from ever serving in public office.