narcan
The number of people who died from overdoses this year is 41% higher than the same period in 2022.
Narcan is a nasal-spray drug that can immediately reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Two hundred people died from accidental drug overdoses in San Francisco from January through March, a nearly 41% increase from the 142 deaths reported for the first three months last year.

Fatal overdoses in San Francisco killed dozens more people in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. It is an alarming jump that frustrates hopes that the city's overdose numbers would decline post-pandemic. Rather, overdose deaths have returned to the highs seen in 2020 during lockdowns.


Comment: Lockdowns were indeed harmful, but the fallout caused by lockdowns has made life many times worse for people. And that's before considering the added burden of soaring inflation.


Two hundred people died from accidental drug overdoses from January through March, medical examiner data shows, with the vast majority of deaths involving fentanyl. That reflects a nearly 41% increase from the 142 deaths reported for the first three months last year.

"That's an enormous rise," said Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of family and community medicine at UCSF. "And it shows an utter lack of adequate public policy."


Comment: San Francisco is at the forefront of dystopian public policy, which is why, along with New York and a number of other 'liberal' states, people are escaping in their hundreds of thousands.


Even before the recent increase, San Francisco had among the highest overdose rates of large U.S. counties. The issue has drawn the attention of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who visited the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods with city officials on Wednesday to discuss the fentanyl crisis.

The increase in fatal overdoses was especially pronounced among people who may have been experiencing homelessness. While 26 overdose victims with "no fixed address" died during the three-month period last year, that number more than doubled, to 61, during the same period this year.

Ciccarone said homeless people who use drugs are "doubly ignored," experiencing both a lack of services and a sense of hostility from the larger community. Research from UCSF found that deaths of homeless people doubled in the first year of the pandemic, largely from drug overdoses. And a Chronicle investigation found that even inside city-funded hotels meant to get people off the streets, hundreds have died from overdoses.


Comment: Government funded accommodation is but one service people with these complex problems need.


Overdose deaths among Latino and Black people have also seen a particularly large increase in 2023. Drug overdoses killed 34 Latino people in the 2023 period, a 62% increase from the 21 deaths last year, while deaths of Black people rose by 61%, from 41 to 66.

Black San Franciscans are far more likely to die of an overdose than people of other racial groups relative to their population, according to medical examiner data.

White people made up the largest segment of the city's overdose deaths in early 2023, but the tally increased by a much smaller percentage: 9%, from 70 to 76.

Ciccarone largely attributed the increase in deaths to the closure of the Tenderloin Center in December. The center's staff reversed more than 300 overdoses from when it opened in January 2022 to when it closed in December.

Mayor London Breed closed the center less than a year after opening it, saying that the site wasn't helping enough people get into treatment. Fewer than 1% of visits resulted in such connections.

Ciccarone believes the Tenderloin Center, despite its flaws, prevented deaths and helped people who use drugs feel more comfortable seeking treatment.

"We simply didn't let the project last long enough to see the benefits," he said.

San Francisco's Department of Public Health didn't answer questions from The Chronicle regarding whether the closure of the Tenderloin Center contributed to rising deaths. But the department pointed to the city's recent initiatives to deal with the crisis, including expanding a drug treatment facility and increasing access to addiction medication.

"These deaths drive us to find more ways to prevent overdoses and reduce the harms caused by fentanyl, which drive these deaths, and by other substances as well," the department said in a statement.

But Ciccarone said the city still isn't doing enough to reduce fatal overdoses, including opening a supervised drug consumption site.

"We've turned our hearts off," he said.