Despite dip, S.F.’s deaths by overdose remain high
After a calamitous, recordbreaking year for fatal overdoses in San Francisco, the city has seen a slight decline in monthly deaths since the beginning of 2021.
But the numbers are still staggeringly high.
Seventy three people died of an overdose in January, compared to 45 in June.
In all, about 344 people have fallen victim to the city’s drug crisis in just the first six months of the year, according to preliminary data released by the
Medical Examiner’s office Tuesday.
That compares to the nearly 700 people who died of an overdose in 2020.
Similar to 2020, the majority of 2021’s overdose deaths — 74% — involved fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has gripped the West Coast in recent years.
The slight slowdown in fatal overdoses is particularly notable after the last year, when deaths increased relentlessly during the pan
In all, about 344 people have fallen victim to the city’s drug crisis in just the first six months of the year.
demic. Experts partly attributed that spike, experienced in cities across the country, to the stress and isolation caused by the pandemic.
Now that the restrictions are easing, Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s new director of behavioral health, said she feels “cautiously optimistic” that the curve is flattening. But she noted that the data was only preliminary.
The slowdown is “welcome news, but the numbers are still high,” she said. “Every overdose death is the loss of someone’s brother, mother, sister, friend.”
At the same time, the city’s death data doesn’t show the true scope of the crisis. According to the DOPE project, Narcan — an opioid overdose reversal drug — has been used more than 4,200 times this year to save someone’s life, compared to about 4,300 times in all of 2020. That means the wider availability of Narcan is likely saving lives.
On average, people have been saved from the brink of death at least 21 times per day this year. Kristen Marshall, project manager of the DOPE Project, attributes that to the increased access of harm reduction tools, like Narcan, around the city.
But, she said, that number is also likely a massive undercount.
San Francisco’s latest overdose numbers come as the city adds more funding and resources to address the crisis, including expanding treatment beds, creating a new street outreach team and increasing access to medicationassisted treatments, like buprenorphine and methadone.
It also comes as the San Francisco Police Department seized a record amount of fentanyl: 12 kilos this year, more than double the amount in all of 2020.
Still, the situation in San Francisco is grim.
On a single day in January, three people fatally overdosed within three hours of each other, according to data provided to The Chronicle. One of those peo
ple was found in a Tenderloin alley, another in front of an InHome Supportive Services building in SoMa, and a third near the edge of Candlestick Point State Park.
Two were Black; one was white. Each of the victims had fentanyl in their system.
Marshall said the city’s numbers will remain high as long as the root causes of overdoses are not addressed — including homelessness, a dearth of appropriate treatment options and systemic racism that causes Black people and other minorities to be disproportionately impacted by the drug epidemic.
According to the data, 26% of the people who have died this year were Black. That’s notable because Black people only account for
about 6% of the city’s population. Meanwhile, 40% of the city’s deaths occurred in the Tenderloin and SoMa, neighborhoods with the highest concentration of
homeless people.
“The people that our city leadership says they care the most about, are the ones who are dying the most from overdoses,” Marshall said.