US Fentanyl Crisis: One User Died of Drug Overdose Every 10 Hours in San Francisco

San Francisco this week reported a 41% spike in drug-related deaths in the first quarter of this year, the Guardian said in a report. The report outlined that the spike means one person is dying of accidental overdose every 10 hours.

The drug problem is part of the fentanyl crisis that has afflicted the US’ West Coast. Over the past three months at least 200 people have died, the city’s medical examiner said while comparing it to 142 deaths during the same period of time last year. Fentanyl was detected in the bodies of most of the deaths.

The Guardian report also said that homeless people and Black Americans were adversely affected and the deaths of those unhoused were twice as many compared to those who had a shelter.

The impact on the Black American population also raised eyebrows because a third of the overdose victims were from that demographic, despite Black people making up only 5% of San Francisco’s population.

Experts pointed that punitive action, like increased policing and taking a law-and-order approach towards the problem, has increased the crisis. The report pointed out that San Francisco’s authorities have asked for more funding for police and increased arrests of drug dealers to deal with the crisis.

It should be noted that San Francisco opened an outreach centre, where drug users were using with medical supervision, which means drug use in these sites were allowed but with medical professionals present there to prevent accidental overdose deaths.

San Francisco’s official statistics, according to the Guardian, shows attendants used Narcan to reverse more than 330 opiate overdoses in the 11 months the centre was open.

Experts speaking to the Guardian pointed out that many expected these safe use sites to show results too soon and the report also pointed out that San Francisco mayor London Breed was disappointed that fewer than 1% of visits resulted in someone getting connected to addiction treatment services and also by the low number of visitors at the centre who ultimately accepted help to get off of drugs.

The centre was shuttered down because some residents felt that the area where the centre was set, Tenderloin Center, was shut down because some residents felt more drug abusers were coming to a place which was anyway impacted due to drug abuse.

Some also felt the approach was not right and some were repelled because they felt these centres were welcoming drug addicts to congregate and use drugs.

Gary McCoy of HealthRIGHT 360, the nonprofit that ran the drug overdose prevention portion of the Tenderloin Center, speaking to the Guardian said that the law-enforcement approach is pushing drug users into isolation.

Dr Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of addiction medicine at the University of California San Francisco, also told the Guardian that it takes more than 11 months for results to show if one was following the approach where centres were set up for safe drug use.

Ciccarone cited data from other safe use sites across the world and referred to a safe house site in Australia’s Melbourne, which opened five years ago, and helped reduce overdoses, bring drug use off the streets and help get addicts into treatment.

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