(San Francisco) The mayor of San Francisco declared a state of emergency on Friday in a downtown neighborhood that has seen a surge in overdose deaths since last year, mostly linked to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid which is wreaking havoc in the United States.
The Tenderloin neighborhood, next to Union Square and other San Francisco tourist hotspots, has become a hotspot for opioid use, with daily deaths as a result.
On average, “we lose more than two people a day from overdoses, mostly from fentanyl,” said City Councilor Matt Haney.
“It is a public health crisis, which requires an urgent response to the height in terms of coordination and determination,” he adds.
The number of overdoses in San Francisco has exploded since the mid-2010s and the arrival of synthetic opiates, much more powerful than heroin or morphine.
A record was set last year with 711 deaths and the number of victims is not expected to be far from that figure again in 2021, according to projections by the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.
The state of emergency proclamation signed Friday by the mayor, London Breed, allows local authorities to quickly open accommodation and psychological care centers by disregarding the rules of town planning or usual public contracts.
The measure is inspired by that implemented across San Francisco from February 2020 to stem the COVID-19 epidemic.
Between April 2020 and April 2021, the United States had 100,306 fatal overdoses, a 28.5% increase from the same period the year before (78,056 deaths).
It is the first time that the symbolic bar of 100,000 deaths has been exceeded, which amounts to one death every 5 minutes.
This scourge is fueled in particular by the circulation of counterfeit medicines, in particular via the internet or social networks.
The Tenderloin district has long been renowned for its high density of homeless people, drug addicts and drug dealers. For London Breed, the state of emergency will allow “to break the illegal activities in the district” and “to give people the treatment and the support which they need”.
Alcoholism and drug addiction have clearly progressed since the start of the pandemic, which has caused the termination of many assistance programs for dependent people and increased the general level of stress among the population.