San Francisco is poised to surpass a record-breaking year for overdose deaths as 563 overdose fatalities were recorded in the Golden City between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31.
This puts the city on track to hit 845 overdose fatalities in 2023, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, far surpassing the record 725 in 2020.
“There’s so much fentanyl that it’s contaminated other drugs sold on the street like meth and crack cocaine. It’s in everything,” Tom Wolf, a former drug user and current recovery advocate, told Fox News. He said the surge in overdoses is because the amount of fentanyl on the streets has increased threefold compared to 2020.
“I see suffering and despair on many blocks,” Wolf added. There are “literally thousands of people in tents or on the street” who “are almost all using meth and fentanyl.”
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The medical examiner’s office data shows that 456 of San Francisco’s 563 overdose deaths this year involved fentanyl. The two deadliest months of the year were August and January, with 84 overdose deaths in each, or roughly three per day.
In 2017, meanwhile, just 36 of the 222 overdose deaths involved fentanyl, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
