A.I. makers must create and observe new ‘laws of robotics’

• June 30, 2023

Not long ago, the artificial intelligence (A.I.) bot ChatGPT as a “courtesy” sent me a copy of my abbreviated biography, which it had written.

ChatGPT, developed by the San Francisco firm OpenAI, was wrong on both my birth date and birthplace. It listed the wrong college as my alma mater. I had not won a single award it said I did, but it ignored those I actually won. Yet, it got enough facts right to assure this was no mere phishing expedition, but a version of the new real thing.

Attempts at correction were ignored.

Related: California college professors test out AI in the classroom, even as cheating debate continues

All along, I knew this could be dicey, both in providing information that – had it been used to correct – could have led to identity theft or, worse, directed criminals to my door.

The experience recalled the science fiction stories and novels of Isaac Asimov, who prophetically devised a generally recognized (in Asimov’s fictional future) set of major laws governing intelligent robots.

In his 1942 short story “Runaround,” Asimov first put forward these three laws, which would become staples in his later works:

“The first law is that a robot shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. The second law is that a robot shall obey any instruction given to it by a human, and the third law is that a robot shall avoid actions or situations that could cause it to harm itself.”

These fictitious laws were reminiscent of the U.S. Constitution, open to constant re-interpretation: new questions arose on what is harm and whether sentient robots should be condemned to perpetual second-class, servant status.

It took more than 30 years, but eventually others tried to improve on Asimov’s laws. Altogether, four authors proposed more such “laws” between 1974 and 2013.

All sought ways to prevent robots from conspiring to dominate or eliminate the human race.

The same threat was perceived in May by more than 100 technology leaders, corporate CEOs and scientists who warned that “A.I. poses an existential threat to humanity.” Their 22-word statement warned that “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

President Biden joined in during a California trip, calling for safety regulations on A.I.

As difficult as it has been to get international cooperation against those other serious threats of pandemics and nuclear weapons, no one can assume A.I. will ever be regulated worldwide, the only way to make such rules or laws effective.

The upshot is that a pause – not a permanent halt — in advancement of A.I. is needed right now.

For A.I. has already permeated essentials of human society, used in college admissions, hiring decisions, generating fake literature and art and in police work, plus driving cars and trucks.

Related: Europe, US urged to investigate the dangers of AI technology

An old truism suggests that “Anything we can conceive of is probably occurring right now someplace in the universe.” The A.I. corollary might be that if anyone can imagine an A.I. robot doing something, then someday a robot will do it.

And so, without active prevention someone somewhere will create a machine capable of murdering humans at its own whim. It also means that someday, without regulation, robots able to conspire against human dominance on Earth will be built, maybe by other robots.

Asimov, of course, imagined all this. His novels featured a few renegade robots, but also noble ones like R. Daneel Olivaw, who created and nurtured a (fictitious) benevolent Galactic Empire.

Related: ChatGPT’s responses to suicide, addiction, sexual assault crises raise questions in new study

In part, Asimov reacted to events of his day, which saw some humans exterminate other types of humans on a huge, industrial scale. He witnessed the rise and fall of vicious dictatorships, more despotic than any of today’s.

Postulating that robots would advance to stages far beyond even today’s A.I., he conceived a system where they would co-exist peacefully with humans on a large scale.

But no one is controlling A.I. development now, leaving it free to go in any direction, good or evil. Human survival demands limits on this, as Asimov foresaw. If we don’t demand it today, not even a modern Asimov could predict the possible consequences.

Email Thomas Elias at [email protected].

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​ Orange County Register 

Harvest Crusade returns this weekend, now at Honda Center

• June 30, 2023

There’s nothing like love and music to bring the faithful together.

The Harvest Crusade festival is expected to deliver just that as it returns this weekend, July 1-2, to welcome thousands to the Honda Center in Anaheim for a weekend of worship and performances.

Musical guests such as Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, Michael W. Smith, Taya, and Passion will perform live.

Pastor Greg Laurie began holding Harvest Crusade or large-scale public evangelistic events, in 1990. After more than three decades, the event continues to provide people with a space to worship.

During the pandemic, the crusade event was streamed online, as an evangelistic cinematic film called A Rush of Hope. In 2022, the event returned to Angel Stadium and was the biggest since 2019, hosting over 210,000 attendees in person and online.

For the first time, the event will be held in the Honda Center rather than Angel Stadium. Angels spokesperson Marie Garvey told CBS News that the change is due to abnormal weather conditions in California this year.

“Angel Stadium has been host to the Harvest Crusades for nearly 30 years, and has a great relationship with Pastor Laurie and his entire team. Given the timing and the unusually cool and wet weather taking place in California this year, the added foot traffic on the field could significantly impact the playing surface for future baseball games. We look forward to working with the Harvest Crusades to be the Southern California home in the future,” the statement said.

In his online blog, Laurie talked about pivoting online during the pandemic.

“So now we’re pivoting again,” he wrote. “What we’re thinking about this year at the Honda Center, since it’s an enclosed environment, is that we’re going to do our service in the round. It’s much closer, much more intimate, and we’re going to have an immersive worship experience this year.”

Laurie added that the event may return to Angel Stadium in the future.

Doors for the Harvest Crusade weekend will open at 4:00 PM on Saturday and Sunday, and the event starts at 6:00 PM. Admission is free for all and no tickets are required, but parking costs $20 for cars and $40 for buses and motorhomes.

The event will be translated onsite for in-venue audience members in Spanish, Thai, French, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Tamil, Romanian, and American Sign Language.

For more information: crusade.harvest.org

Related links

Pastor Greg Laurie to speak at SoCal Harvest this weekend
Founding pastor Rick Warren appeals ouster of Saddleback Church from Southern Baptist Convention
Harvest Crusade and Pastor Greg Laurie to kick off SoCal Harvest for the 30th year
Pastor Rick Warren delivers final Saddleback Church sermon

​ Orange County Register 

HOA Homefront: Why hiring an association member is a very bad idea

• June 30, 2023

Q: Three of the members of our HOA board are employed directly or through service contracts with the master community company. They hold the top offices including president of the HOA board. It appears to be a conflict of interest to serve both masters. Is this legal or just poor judgment to look improper to the community? — S.F., Mission Viejo.

A: Directors of your HOA who are at the same time being paid for services by the master association are in a no-win position, as they are serving two corporations whose interests are not always identical.

This also creates problems for the master HOA board, as other homeowners wonder why the master HOA is paying some of its members.

Surely in the Mission Viejo area, there are many service providers outside the master HOA membership. It looks bad for both your HOA and the master HOA, which is why I believe HOAs should bend over backward to avoid hiring one of its own.

Q: Our HOA is considering hiring a member to design our remodel. Is this legal or advisable? — R.B., Coronado.

A: Unless your governing documents prohibit hiring members, hiring a member as your HOA’s designer is not illegal. However, it may be very unwise. If the member performs poorly, is the HOA board going to hold that person to the same standard as any other service provider?

If the member’s design services are negligently performed, will the HOA board sue the designer for damages?

If the HOA’s relationship with a service provider is personal as well as professional, it’s not truly an “arm’s length” relationship, and that makes it much harder to keep things strictly professional – potentially harming the HOA’s interests.

No matter how much a member may discount their services, there will always be those HOA members who feel it’s improper to hire homeowners or residents.

There are many designers in the greater San Diego area – can’t your board find someone really good outside of the HOA membership?

Q: We have a small association. The board consists of a president who is the boyfriend of the former president. The new president made the old president “property manager.” No election has been held because they keep election time and ballots secret from everyone else. How does one go about challenging entrenched authority of an HOA? These people have control of the HOA but not by a true vote, many people are fed up and are wanting to know a course of action for this. — J.A., Glendale

A.: For the same reasons as stated above, hiring a homeowner to manage their own community is a bad idea. Good intentions are valueless to the HOA if the manager is not qualified to manage the community.

Even if the homeowner were a credentialled manager, they would still be hopelessly entangled between their conflicting roles as homeowner, manager, and board buddy. Small HOAs usually have an easier time than larger ones in electing boards, so things will change when enough members have had enough of this clubby control of the HOA. When that happens, I hope you can find some good volunteers who will commit to clean governance.

Kelly G. Richardson, Esq. is a Fellow of the College of Community Association Lawyers and Partner of Richardson Ober LLP, a California law firm known for community association advice. Submit column questions to [email protected]. 

​ Orange County Register 

The bizarre revival of the Industrial Welfare Commission

• June 30, 2023

California voters have had the power of referendum since 1911. By collecting a required number of signatures on a petition within a set time frame, voters can immediately force a halt to the implementation of a law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. That law then goes on the ballot for voters themselves to approve or reject.

The people’s power of referendum is an important check on the power of lawmakers to impose unpopular measures on an unwilling population. Dealmaking with special interests in the Capitol may result in a law being passed that does not have the support of a majority of Californians, and a referendum is an outlet for voter anger.

So of course, the power of referendum is unpopular in the Capitol.

This year, lawmakers have used the budget process to sabotage a referendum that will appear on the November 2024 ballot. That measure will offer voters the opportunity to decide the fate of Assembly Bill 257, a law passed last year that creates a “Fast Food Council” within the state Department of Industrial Relations. According to the Legislative Counsel’s Digest, “The purpose of the council would be to establish sectorwide minimum standards on wages, working hours, and other working conditions related to the health, safety, and welfare of, and supplying the necessary cost of proper living to, fast food restaurant workers.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 257 in September, and business interests quickly qualified a referendum. The law is on hold until voters weigh in.

However, the freshly negotiated budget deal between Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders includes a line item providing $3 million to fund the state’s previously defunded Industrial Welfare Commission. The IWC dates back to the early 20th century. It regulated wages and working conditions in different sectors of the economy, issuing orders that in some cases are still in effect. However, in 2004, the commission was defunded to prevent Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from using it to change union-supported work rules.

Now the commission will be resurrected with $3 million of funding, enough for a brazen effort to nullify the voters’ power of referendum over AB 257, the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act.

The funding is conditioned on the Industrial Welfare Commission prioritizing industries in which at least 10% of workers are at or below the federal poverty level. According to the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, that includes employees of fast-food restaurants in California.

What a coincidence.

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By another coincidence, the commission has until October 2024 to report on its findings, after it investigates wages paid across the relevant employment sectors and determines if they are “inadequate to supply the cost of proper living.” The findings will be released just as ballots for the November election are mailed to every registered voter.

So one way or another, regardless of what voters think about it, wages and working conditions specifically in the fast-food industry in California will be regulated by a state agency, almost certainly causing prices to rise.

California’s political leaders are arrogantly imposing unique mandates on industries they disfavor at the behest of their political supporters, in this case, labor unions that have targeted franchisees, small business owners who have for decades provided entry-level jobs for California residents.

​ Orange County Register 

New California law protects ‘the children’ by destroying free speech

• June 30, 2023

In just about one year – July 1, 2024 – California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC) will come into full effect; that is, if it is not struck down in the courts. If enacted, social media companies and other online platforms will face a compliance and liability nightmare.

California’s Age Appropriate Design Code Act, which passed in 2022, was intended to enforce a premise that on the surface sounds wholly unobjectionable – that those online services which “children are likely to access … consider the best interests of children when designing, developing, and providing that online service, product, or feature.” In practice, the AADC functions by forcing any such website to submit a Data Protection Impact Assessment before offering any new product or service, in which they must identify all “risks of material detriment to children.” 

This is vaguely defined to encompass anything from exposure to “potentially harmful” content to “whether algorithms used by the online product … could harm children.” And “child” is defined as anyone under 18, which would treat near-high school and some high school graduates the same as kindergartners. 

Essentially, California regulators would have the power to force websites to take down whatever content or cease any practices they deem “materially detrimental to the physical health, mental health, or well-being of a child.” Websites are subject to harsh per-instance fines for failing to protect children from harms that the law largely does not define. 

Thus, a law sold as simply protecting childrens’ privacy online quickly turns into something far more comprehensive, which internet law Professor Eric Goldman has accurately called “a trojan horse for comprehensive regulation of Internet services.”  

Much of the text of the AADC derives from a British law of the same name, which California’s bill text explicitly points to for guidance in enforcing its provisions. The trouble, aside from the law’s incredible vagueness of scope, is that the United States  has something the United Kingdom does not – the First Amendment. While U.S. case law agrees that the government has some degree of duty to protect children from certain kinds of explicit content, such as pornography, even children are afforded a wide degree of First-Amendment-protected access to non-obscene speech.

The effect this law would have on websites’ ability to carry otherwise-legal speech led the trade association NetChoice to challenge the AADC on First Amendment grounds, and to seek an injunction that would block its implementation while under court review. Writing in favor of NetChoice’s request, The New York Times emphasized that the AADC would, by design, limit minors’ freedom of expression and access to legal content, restrictions which have repeatedly been found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Importantly, the changes websites would have to make to accommodate the AADC would impact more than just California residents and minors. For one example, although the AADC does not mandate it directly, many sites might feel compelled to verify their users’ age, which would obviously have to apply to every user to determine who the minors are. Age verification online remains a difficult problem, risking users’ privacy or else submitting them to biometric scans, and creates another barrier to accessing speech that may itself be found unconstitutional.

The most perverse incentive of all is that many sites would find it far more cost-effective to simply attempt to ban all users under 18 from using their platforms. This is essentially what happened after the passage of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in 1998, which created such complexity in processing data from minors under 13 that many platforms simply banned them instead. A similar outcome today would be tragic in an era where kids and teens need to develop digital literacy in order to be successful in the workforce. 

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Conversely, sites might instead comply by effectively treating every user as if they were a minor, restricting the content that every user has access to accordingly. Neither outcome is ideal.

In the event that California’s AADC survives its legal challenges, there are ways the state’s regulators could at least mitigate its worst effects, starting with providing concise regulatory guidance that gives website operators a greater degree of certainty about how the law will be enforced. Overall, however, the law starts from the wrong premise, as it makes online platforms liable for decisions about the appropriateness of content and services for all minors when, in reality, these questions differ substantially for every parent and child. In spite of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s protestations, it would be a far better outcome for parents, children and internet users in general if California’s AADC were struck down as unconstitutional.

Josh Withrow is a fellow for the technology and innovation policy program at the R Street Institute.

​ Orange County Register 

Supreme Court rejects Biden plan to wipe away $400 billion in student loans

• June 30, 2023

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Biden administration overstepped its authority in trying to cancel or reduce student loans for millions of Americans.

The 6-3 decision, with conservative justices in the majority, effectively killed the $400 billion plan, announced by President Joe Biden last year, and left borrowers on the hook for repayments that are expected to resume by late summer.

The court held that the administration needs Congress’ endorsement before undertaking so costly a program. The majority rejected arguments that a bipartisan 2003 law dealing with student loans, known as the HEROES Act, gave Biden the power he claimed.

“Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent, joined by the court’s two other liberals, that the majority of the court “overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans.”

See more on key Supreme Court decisions: Southern California educators, leaders split on court’s affirmative action ruling | Court solidifies protections for workers who ask for religious accommodations | Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions, says race cannot be a factor | Court rejects GOP argument in North Carolina case that could have transformed US elections

Loan repayments are expected to resume by late August under a schedule initially set by the administration and included in the agreement to raise the debt ceiling. Payments have been on hold since the start of the coronavirus pandemic more than three years ago.

The forgiveness program would have canceled $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 or households with less than $250,000 in income. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, would have had an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven.

Twenty-six million people had applied for relief and 43 million would have been eligible, the administration said. The cost was estimated at $400 billion over 30 years.

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​ Orange County Register 

CSUF professor’s book records reunion of Auschwitz twins who survived medical experiments

• June 30, 2023

By Nicole Gregory, contributing writer

In January 1985, Nancy Segal was witness to an extraordinary reunion of adult twins who had suffered from brutal experiments performed on them as children by Josef Mengele in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland during World War II.

Segal, a professor of psychology at Cal State Fullerton, has published her photos and experiences at this event in her new book, “The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive.”

She was already studying twins and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota when she heard about this planned reunion. Segal, a twin herself, raised the funds to go to Poland for the reunion and also to attend a mock trial of Mengele, held by the survivors at Yad Vashem in Israel several months later. Segal brought along her camera to photograph the participants and their journey as they got to know one another, discovered photos of themselves and other archived artifacts, shared their stories, and walked through the death camp and the surrounding areas.

The event demonstrated the tremendous resilience of the survivors who’d lost their childhoods, their families, and their homes. It was organized by a group called Children of Auschwitz’s Deadly Laboratory Experiments Survivors (C.A.N.D.L.E.S.).

“Not a lot of people know about these twins,” Segal said. “People have heard vaguely about the Mengele twins and experiments, but they really don’t know the humanity behind the science — or the pseudoscience — that went on.”

Mengele injected children with chemicals to see if their eyes could be turned blue and with bacteria to observe the ways they became ill, among many other cruel experiments. He measured every aspect of their bodies and quizzed them about their families.

“It was an outrage, a horrific stain on the history of a well-respected and very informative research methodology,” Segal said. Her photos and memories of the reunion record the momentous healing for the twins. She photographed survivors placing a memorial candle and wreath at the ruin of a crematorium. Another photo shows a survivor touching the once-electrified barbed wire, and another shows a twin who is now a rabbi saying a prayer at the reunion.

“I regard these photographs as a really unique collection of human history,” Segal said. “No one has ever seen these. This is a very significant event in terms of the Holocaust, and also in terms of twin studies. It’s a story that needed to be told.”

For Segal, the subject is deeply personal. “I’m a Jewish twin. I could really resonate with this because in another time, another place, that could have been my twin sister and me there.”

What was Mengele trying to discover with his experiments? “I think he was trying to show genetic differences among different population groups to prove the superiority of the Aryan race,” Segal said. “That was the ultimate goal. But I think he also couldn’t wait to be lauded as a famous scientist who had this incredible twin data. I think he was kind of driven by blind scientific ambition.”

An estimated 700 to 1,500 pairs of twins were sent to Auschwitz, but the exact number is not known. An estimated 200 twins survived but only nine joined the 1985 reunion.

“A lot of those twins did not know what had happened to the other pairs,” Segal said. “This event connected them with people that they knew as children, so that was remarkable. I saw the most wonderful reunion between these two men from different pairs in the aisle of a plane. I mean, it was amazing.”

The event proved to be a turning point for the survivors. “They went back and confronted the forces that had so clearly separated them from their parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters,” Segal said. “They had the resilience and the strength to confront all that, and to survive and lead productive lives, have occupations, raise families. I think it was healing in the sense that they felt they were bringing Mengele to a kind of trial. They were alerting the world to this. In fact, this event is what stimulated the governments of Israel, Germany, and the U.S. to start a hunt for Mengele.”

In 1985, it was thought that Mengele was still alive. When it was later reported that he had died by drowning in Brazil, many Holocaust survivors did not believe this was true.

Segal is the author of several previous books on twins and lectures nationally and internationally. Most recently she gave a talk at the Orange County Holocaust Education Center in Newport Beach.

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​ Orange County Register 

Narcan hits Southern California streets — and soon store shelves — to fend off the opioid crisis

• June 30, 2023

“Do you need any Narcan?”

Annastasia Rose Beal’s voice rang out cheerfully as she stepped off of an electric skateboard one gloomy Wednesday afternoon and approach three men seated on a Santa Ana sidewalk at First and Lyon streets, with a blend of motels, other low-slung businesses and palm trees about.

Beal was doing what she often does: handing out for free the drug that can cancel out, in miraculous fashion, opioid overdoses.

In a crop top, sneakers and jean shorts, the 28-year-old Beal didn’t ask the men what drugs they may have been on. She didn’t ask if they were homeless. She did make light conversation and asked how she could help.

The three men turned into five. A woman across the street gazed at Beal’s wagon she had been towing — yes, behind her electric skateboard. It was stacked high with boxes of Narcan, water bottles, condoms, hygiene wipes, and electrolyte drink mix packs. The woman crossed First and Beal waved her over and asked:

“What can I get you, my dear?”

The woman, about Beal’s age, took the proffered box that was the size of a palm. It held Narcan.

Beal had struggled with opiate addiction as a teenager in Irvine. “These are my people,” she said. Many of her friends from that time are dead.

Now is different. The drug is commonly called “Narcan,” which is actually the brand name of a device that dispenses naloxone like a nasal spray. The drug can also be injected into the muscle. Finally, it has become widely available and is considered a major weapon — but not the cure-all — in the fight against the opioid-overdose epidemic sweeping the country in part because of fentanyl, which can be lethal at just two milligrams.

The San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles County sheriff’s departments now all carry naloxone. In 2021, for example, Orange County sheriff’s personnel gave 219 doses of naloxone to 117 people, said Carrie Braun, a spokesperson for the agency. Forty-six of them were in the jails, with the rest on the streets.

Last October, the Los Angeles Unified School District approved naloxone for every K-12 school. That month, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved six $20,000 grants for the drug’s purchase by school districts. In January, a new law began requiring community colleges and Cal State campuses to keep the drug on hand, too. And in 2022, some state lawmakers started pushing for another law that would make libraries, bars, and gas stations stock up on naloxone.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved making Narcan, or naloxone, available over the counter. Soon, anyone at least age 18 will be allowed to buy it off of the shelf. For now, pharmacists can provide the drug without a prescription, albeit once they’ve finished opioid-education requirements.

Beal distributes Narcan through her organization, the Irvine-based Harm Reduction Circle she started in 2021 with co-founders Emma Webb, Dylan Waller, and Hannah Halbers. Their group had to get state approval to hand out the drug.

Beal says she maintains meticulous records of her group’s distribution, keeping the nonprofit in the California Department of Health Care Services’ Naloxone Distribution Project, which delivers the drug by the pallet. Beal also trains people how to use the nasal spray, which is so easy to use, she said, that her 8-year-old daughter, Samantha, learned to do it.

In 2023 so far, Harm Reduction Circle has distributed more than 11,000 doses. In 2022, the group said Narcan it supplied reversed 170 overdoses. In the vast sea of approaches to the opioid epidemic, saving lives — not evangelizing on the dangers of drug use — is Beal’s focus.

“Everyone should be carrying Narcan,” she said.

Naloxone’s cost can be a barrier to its success.

It’s about $140, on average, for a standard, two-dose pack of Narcan spray. The injection is $40 to $60. California is looking to partner with a manufacturer to produce affordable naloxone.

“Today’s market lacks access to a low-cost naloxone nasal spray and relying on the market to self-correct is uncertain, underscoring the need to support development, manufacturing, or procurement of a low-cost option,” Andrew DiLuccia, a spokesman for the state Department of Health Care Access and Information, said in an email.

Major national retailers, such as CVS and Walgreens, carry the drug as do many other pharmacies. But months after the FDA’s announcement, it’s unclear when consumers will actually be able to get the drug off of shelves as easily as grabbing Pepto Bismol or Advil.

Since the FDA’s March announcement, Andres Hanna, a pharmacist who owns Yee’s Pharmacy in Long Beach, said he has regularly checked with manufacturers and looked for FDA updates about when over-the-counter naloxone will be available.

“Once (FDA) approved it, I checked this right away to see if the wholesaler has it so I can get some,” Hanna said. “(But) no one knows anything, it’s not available anywhere.”

The FDA, in an email, casts the spotlight elsewhere when saying when naloxone will hit shelves: “The timeline for availability and price of this OTC (over-the-counter) product is determined by the manufacturer.”

Emergent BioSolutions, which makes Narcan, is “working toward a late summer launch this year,” spokesperson Assal Hellmer said in an email, without elaborating on what needs to first be done.

For now, Hanna has naloxone behind the counter, which he can furnish to those who don’t have a prescription if they are 18 or older. Also, doctors prescribe naloxone along with opioids for their patients as a safeguard, he said.

But Hanna wants to make it even easier for the public to get — from shelves out in the open. Last month, he went to a funeral for someone who suffered an opioid overdose.

Ryan Marble, a 38-year-old security guard who lives in Santa Ana and works for a motel on First Street, regularly sees people using drugs. While at work, he said, he has administered naloxone at least three times. When Beal arrived that Wednesday, Marble happily accepted the Narcan.

“This isn’t going to fix it,” Marble said. “It’s putting a Band-Aid over it. Our government needs to do better.”

Matt Capelouoto lost his 20-year-old daughter, Alexandra, to fentanyl.

An Arizona State student who aspired to become a social worker, she died in 2019 at their Temecula family home from an accidental opiate overdose. In Capelouoto’s words, it was a poisoning — what Alexandra believed was an oxycodone pill, he said, turned out to be laced with fentanyl. In February, the 23-year-old Riverside man who sold her the pill was sentenced to federal prison.

“I will never say my daughter died of a drug overdose, my daughter was poisoned,” the father said. “She did not make a wise choice (but the) fact of the matter is this person sold her a counterfeit pill.”

Capelouoto emphasized that he “110%” supports making naloxone accessible. But more needs to be done.

“For (myself and the) majority of parents that I speak with, all of our kids died by themselves,” he said. “There was nobody around to administer Narcan. So how do we address those deaths? People like to say we’re not going to arrest our way out of this, we’re not going to Narcan our way out of it, either.

“I do support it, but it’s not an end-all. And we need to have a wide variety of tools to help save the lives that are lost.”

Capelouoto advocates for drug dealers getting charged with murder if someone dies from fentanyl poisoning their product caused. The stance has gained traction with some district attorneys.

Naloxone is not new. It was developed in the 1960s and gained FDA approval in 1971; in subsequent decades, it was primarily used by first responders and hospitals. No longer.

Dr. Sid Puri, a substance-abuse expert with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said he disagreed with any notion that making naloxone widely accessible is somehow enabling drug use.

“If someone was coming into my office, and they have really, really high sugars, my first instinct isn’t, ‘Go out and eat better and exercise before I give you medication or any treatment to reduce your diabetes,’ it’s, ‘I’m giving you medication, I’m giving you something to reduce the risk and to help you in your current situation,’ ” Puri said.

“And that same way, someone struggling with substance use disorder needs naloxone (or) they need sterile supplies because that reduces overdoses and deaths and disease transmission.”

Puri said the over-the-counter approval is “huge” — it normalizes naloxone in everyday places.

“When we think of the way that people have to get naloxone now, they have to get prescribed or they have to go into a pharmacy, they have to give their ID and insurance card,” the medical doctor said. “All those are barriers, especially for people who are experiencing homelessness, or who are using drugs and feel completely stigmatized by the medical and pharmaceutical industry anyway.”

Naloxone, Puri added, has no known harmful side effects and isn’t addictive; the only downside is the user could go through withdrawals. If someone is given naloxone and they aren’t on opioids, it has no effect.

For those on an opioid, naloxone reverses the effect. It can restore normal breathing in two or three minutes. Multiple doses may be needed if a more potent opioid such as fentanyl has been ingested, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Naloxone lasts 30 to 90 minutes in the body. Opioids can stay in the system longer — another reason additional doses may be required.

Administering naloxone is covered under California’s Good Samaritan Law, which protects those who act in good faith to assist someone during a medical emergency.

“If people are alive, we can at least link them to treatment services, we can understand their goals and help them reach them in a safe and effective way,” Puri said. “The dam is broken, and we are watching this wave wash over us. But naloxone is a lifejacket for a lot of people that would otherwise just completely die and drown. So I think this is a step in something.”

Annastasia Rose Beal rides her Onewheel electric skateboard as she hands out Narcan, water, condoms, and other supplies to people along First Street in Santa Ana on Friday, April 14, 2023. Beal runs an Irvine-based nonprofit called the Harm Reduction Circle.(Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

After an hour on the streets, Beal meandered along First on her way to Grand Avenue, her first turn on her way home to Irvine on her electric skateboard.

She has bigger plans for Harm Reduction Circle. The group has started providing free meals on certain days and setting up naloxone distribution at events such as concerts and festivals and on college campuses.

A few more people popped up as she walked. One man she gave a pack of M&M’s. Another woman chatted with Beal for 10 minutes and took a box of Narcan before heading off to a bus stop.

Beal hopped off of her electric skateboard intermittently, leaving boxes of Narcan on a bench, on the top of a trash can, on a curb, and near some bushes.

She hopes whoever needs it, finds it.

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​ Orange County Register