SF case study: Rhetoric aside, “criminalizing drug use” likely a strategic part of reducing overdoses
Josef Worlicek: Lot und seine Töchter (Lot and his daughters), 1844. Image in Public Domain.
SF Mayor Breed's opponents regularly poke at her hardening stance on public substance use, labeling her proposals uncompassionate and quick to condemn risky lifestyles. But as SF's fentanyl overdose deaths spike, some folks are changing their minds—from pushing questionable “safe” consumption sites to begging law enforcement to intervene. From the SF Standard.
More people died from accidental fentanyl overdoses in San Francisco in July than almost any other month since the city began releasing overdose death data three years ago, according to preliminary figures released by the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office Tuesday.
The 62 people who died from fentanyl overdoses in July represent the vast majority of the 71 people who died from drug overdoses of any kind. The only other time the city reported more fentanyl deaths was in May, one of the deadliest months on record, when 65 people died....
Mayor London Breed — with help from state officials — has ramped up policing, vowing to arrest dealers and some users, but critics have said her approach only criminalizes drug use, which they say should be treated as a public health problem.
Critics have questioned whether Breed’s decision to close the Tenderloin Center in December is related to the jump in deaths. The center functioned as an informal supervised consumption site and supporters said it saved lives by reversing overdoses.
But nearly a year after San Francisco released the first-of-its-kind overdose prevention plan, the picture remains bleak. The plan, released in September, called for reducing overdoses in San Francisco by 15% by 2025, increasing the number of people receiving medications for addiction treatment by 30% by 2025 and reducing racial disparities in overdose deaths by 30% by 2025. Tuesday’s report said that 33% of deaths were Black people so far this year compared with 28% in 2022.
She said the department intends to “redouble” its efforts to meet goals around reducing both overall rates of overdose and racial disparities in overdose.
This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Standard. Read the whole thing here.
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