Drug overdose death is a crisis in San Francisco, and this year the city is on track to break its record for accidental overdose deaths.
So far this year, from January through September, there have been 620 overdose deaths recorded with 506 attributed to fentanyl, the San Francisco Chief Medical Examiner stated in an Accidental Drug Overdose Data report.
The city is on track to reach over 800 overdose deaths by the end of 2023.
The city began publishing monthly reports of overdose deaths in 2020, and that year holds the record with 726 people dying due to drugs. More people died of overdose than of COVID-19 in 2020, stated the San Francisco Department of Public Health in their 2022 Overdose Prevention Plan Report.
In 2021 there was a slight drop with 642 total overdose deaths, and in 2022 there were 649 total overdose deaths.
According to the Overdose Data reports, fentanyl continuously ranks on the list as the top killer; it contributed to 519 overdose deaths in 2020, 478 overdose deaths in 2021, and 459 overdose deaths in 2022. The report states that fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic opioid, has presented new challenges.
Dr. Grant Colfax, the city’s public health director, said that “fentanyl has been a game-changer” unlike any other drug San Francisco public health officials have encountered, reported the San Francisco Examiner.
Mr. Colfax said that nearly two people a day are dying in San Francisco due to overdose.
San Francisco has the highest overdose death rate among large California counties, a rate that is similar to other major cities across the United States.
Tom Wolf, a recovery advocate and former homeless drug user from San Francisco, told The Epoch Times in an email that people dying of overdose in record numbers is a national tragedy which is most visible in San Francisco.
He said, “It is this way because San Francisco allowed an organized drug dealing ring to gain a foothold in the city, cartels have switched solely to fentanyl and meth distribution and because of the mass quantities of fentanyl available, the price has dropped to as little as $5 for 1/10 of a gram.”
He added that San Francisco lacks treatment and instead focuses its time and budget on radical interpretations of harm reduction, which include giving out free pipes, foil, and straws to smoke drugs with.
“This is enabling—plain and simple,” he said.
He said the term accidental overdose death is accurate in most cases because “people don’t want to die of overdose; unfortunately, for many on the street, they don’t care if they do because they have lost hope.”
Mr. Wolf said he is neutral when it comes to safe injection sites because, as a former drug user, he would have rather used drugs inside instead of on the street.
He said, “However, opening these sites without the appropriate infrastructure of drug treatment and housing, makes no difference.”
He pointed to Vancouver, Canada, which continues to break overdose death records despite having 14 safe injection sites. In addition, safe injection sites are still against federal law in the United States, he said.
To help the situation with overdose deaths, he said, “We need intervention, plain and simple.”
He said that can mean mandated treatment for those on the street breaking the law to support their addiction, as well as treatment on demand.
He said that there must also be a sustained law enforcement component to reduce the open-air drug dealing plaguing San Francisco.
We need “the kitchen sink” approach, he said.
He said cracking down on public intoxication can help only if people are held long enough in custody to detox and then offered a treatment bed, but arresting them and holding them for 48 hours before releasing them back to the street does little to help.
He said the DOJ launching the “All Hands on Deck” Initiative can result in fewer overdose deaths only if it is sustained for an extended period of time, with a minimum of one year.
In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, and Police Chief Bill Scott announced the formation of a new joint law enforcement task force to investigate opioid-linked deaths and poisonings in the city. The task force will treat opioid deaths in San Francisco similar to homicide cases, to start early next year.
Mr. Wolf said he fully supports the formation of the new task force.
“Knowingly selling a drug that kills 3 people per day in San Francisco is involuntary manslaughter at a minimum if not murder. Period—end of story,” he said.
He thinks the timing of the new initiative and task force has something to do with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) coming to San Francisco, but he has also been told by city officials that this operation will continue beyond APEC.
He said he and others have been advocating for several years in San Francisco for federal intervention, so he’s counting on it.
He said: “To date, the Feds have arrested over 100 drug dealers in this operation. Almost all of them were undocumented immigrants from Honduras. Most of them will be deported, which is the right move in this case.”
Darren Mark Stallcup, founder of the World Peace Movement, told The Epoch Times in an email that San Francisco has already surpassed its former number of fentanyl deaths.
He said, “The numbers released by health officials are inaccurate and do not take into account people who overdose on the county border or those who overdose on the San Francisco BART train whose bodies are found only [at] the end of the line in places like Antioch and San Jose.”
Mr. Stallcup thinks calling it an accidental overdose is not accurate considering the fact that they give out free needles and pipes to people who are purposely giving up on life and continuing to do fentanyl.
“Seems like assisted suicide,” he said. “Safe injection sites are really just fentanyl lounges and they serve no purpose other than monitoring people who are using instead of actually getting them the help that they need.”
He added that fentanyl dealers circle these facilities for potential customers.
Mr. Stallcup believes that Dr. Grant Colfax, the city’s public health director, should step down from his position and let somebody who is more strict on fentanyl take the lead.
He said: “Cracking down on fentanyl dealers is a great way to stop the fentanyl crisis in our community. If they are determined to be illegal immigrants, they need to be deported because there are immigrants here in the USA working hard who are honest and have families and the fentanyl dealers give those good immigrants a bad name.”
He said that if somebody is using fentanyl near schools, a playground, or public spaces with families, they need to be arrested and forced into rehab or treatment, because normal people would not bring fentanyl near family environments.
“Fentanyl is not family friendly!” he said.
Mr. Stallcup believes the DOJ launching the “All Hands on Deck” Initiative will result in fewer overdose deaths and is a great step in the right direction.
“Families want to feel safe again,” he said.
Mr. Stallcup said he is a Republican and will vote Republican in the next election, but for the time being, he believes that the new task force for treating opioid deaths in San Francisco similar to homicide cases is a step in the right direction.
“It is very simple—people who sell fentanyl need to be charged with murder, because fentanyl kills people,” he said.
He said that in regards to APEC coming to San Francisco and the street being cleaned up for the summit, he believes that what he calls the “re-fentanylization” of San Francisco will happen overnight following the conference.
“Unfortunately the cleanliness and safety is only temporary when the President is in town,” he said.
He said it was concerning because APEC was only halfway through when he saw people overdosing near and next to the international summit.
He said the situation seems to have deteriorated rapidly around APEC, and the metal barricades put up to secure the perimeter of APEC served no purpose except for scaring citizens and herding people like cattle.
