In this Jan. 23, 2018, file photo, Leah Hill, a behavioral health fellow with the Baltimore City Health Department, displays a sample of Narcan nasal spray in Baltimore. The overdose-reversal drug is a critical tool to easing America’s coast-to-coast opioid epidemic. San Francisco has recorded only five fewer deaths in the first two months of 2024 than in the same time last year, which ended as The City’s deadliest on record.
In this Jan. 23, 2018, file photo, Leah Hill, a behavioral health fellow with the Baltimore City Health Department, displays a sample of Narcan nasal spray in Baltimore. The overdose-reversal drug is a critical tool to easing America’s coast-to-coast opioid epidemic. San Francisco has recorded only five fewer deaths in the first two months of 2024 than in the same time last year, which ended as The City’s deadliest on record.
San Francisco is not far off last year’s record-setting fatal-overdose pace through the first two months of 2024, according to newly published city data.
One hundred thirty-one people died of accidental drug overdoses in January and February, according to the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner — just five fewer deaths than in the first two months of 2023.
There were 67 overdose deaths recorded in January and 64 in February. Officials revised the former figure after initially reporting 66 deaths. More than three-quarters of this year’s deaths have been attributed to fentanyl.
The City reported 811 overdose deaths in 2023, the deadliest year on record since San Francisco started tallying such deaths in 2020. Officials attributed more than 80% of those deaths to fentanyl.
Overdoses involving xlyazine, a tranquilizer, and bromazolam, an unlicensed drug similar to xanax, continue to cause concern. The City attributed 78 deaths to the two drugs all of last year, and nine in the first two months of 2023.
State and city officials have recently made a legislative push to expand treatment beds and services for those struggling substance abuse. San Francisco Mayor London Breed introduced an ordinance earlier this year aimed at cutting red tape from the process of acquiring more beds, which the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed last month.
California also implemented Senate Bill 43 earlier this year, legislation that updated the criteria for when individuals can be placed in conservatorship and forced to receive treatment.
Proposition 1, a statewide initiative aimed at expanding the state’s mental-health system to include more resources and services for those suffering from substance-use disorder and experiencing homelessness, led by just shy of 4,300 votes on Tuesday night with nearly 1.3 million ballots still outstanding. Opponents of the measure conceded defeat earlier that day, saying it was “almost certain” to pass.
