The clinic was one of the very first free medical clinics in the U.S., and it helped launch a broader free-clinic movement across the country.
It introduced new approaches to addiction treatment: for example, early outpatient heroin-detox programming at a time when detox was almost exclusively hospital-based.
The clinic’s ethos (healthcare without shame, judgement, or barrier) became influential in public-health thinking.
Many local and visiting musical talent used their services over time…. it is rumored that Nirvana named their album “Bleach” after visiting the clinic in the late eighties and saw the posters there that urged heroin users to “bleach your works”.
Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic
558 Clayton Street
San Francisco CA 94117
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