2020 was S.F.’s deadliest year for overdoses, by far

More than 70% of this year’s victims were found with the opioid fentanyl in their system
San Francisco Chronicle (US)
Friday, January 15, 2021

San Francisco lost a total of 699 people to overdoses last year, a 59% rise from 2019, according to new data released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. That number is more than three times the amount of people that died of COVID-19 in the city during the same period. It also represents 699 sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends and loved ones felled by an epidemic that the city has been unable to control. “It didn’t have to happen,” sighed Kristen Marshall, director of the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project, which manages the city’s overdose response. “The root of these overdose deaths in San Francisco is homelessness, poverty and racism that has been institutionalized throughout our systems of care.”