Unlike Gov. Jerry Brown, who vetoed San Francisco’s safe injection pilot clinic, Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that he remains “very, very open” to a pilot program and would consider one if elected governor.

Speaking at a campaign stop in San Francisco’s Mission District, the Democratic lieutenant governor said he hasn’t “read the details of the legislation” that Brown vetoed Sunday. But he said he has spoken with San Francisco Mayor London Breed “on multiple occasions” about a pilot program that would allow drug users to shoot up in a city-sanctioned center under supervision. While such safe-injection sites exist in Canada, Europe and Australia, there are none in the U.S.

“I’m very open to that. I’d like to learn more about why the governor vetoed it in terms of making what I believe is a legal argument — so I’d like to research that,” Newsom said while visiting the Felton Family Service Agency early childhood center. “I’m not wedded to the language of the existing bill, but I am certainly very, very open to a pilot.”

Some studies have shown that safe injection sites lower overdose rates and encourage some users into treatment. But Brown disagreed, saying in his veto statement that “enabling illegal and destructive drug use will never work.” He also said he feared that San Francisco officials and health professionals could be vulnerable to federal prosecution for facilitating drug use.

The bill by Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, would have created a four-year pilot program in San Francisco aimed at reducing opioid overdoses and encouraging users to go into treatment by giving them supervised facilities to inject themselves and ride out the high under clinical supervision.

Newsom said that wasn’t the only bill on which he and Brown disagreed. He said he would have signed a bill to require public universities in California to offer abortion pills on campus. Brown vetoed the measure, saying such services are “widely available” to students at off-campus clinics.

“I would have supported that. I have long supported that,” Newsom said. “I subscribe to Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s position on that.”

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Newsom also disagreed with Brown’s decision last week to extend the deployment of 400 California National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border until March.

The Trump administration had asked southern border states to deploy troops along the boundary. Brown agreed to do so, but said they would not be used to “round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life,” build a wall or enforce federal immigration laws. The governor said they would be used to target smugglers, gangs and human traffickers.

Newsom said Tuesday that “he wouldn’t have participated in it,” and that Brown’s decision to extend the deployment was “news to me.” He said he would try to pull out of the agreement if he’s elected.

“I’d like to see what contractual provisions exist there before we can determine whether or not we can pull away from it,” Newsom said. “I just think it’s a stunt on the president’s part.”

If elected, Newsom said, he would bring “more energy” in the first 100 days of his administration, including “high-profile appointments.”

“I think there will be a lot more energy, a lot more visibility on big, high-profile issues,” Newsom told The Chronicle’s editorial board Tuesday. “There will be stated goals that will be audacious … tempered by the pragmatism that is required to achieve those goals. That tone will be set, I hope in the first budget, in those first first 100 days.”

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli