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San Francisco Drug Deaths Down Notably, Narcan Gets Credit

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After surging during the COVID pandemic into a crushing public health emergency, drug overdose deaths in San Francisco plummeted in 2024, according to preliminary data from health officials. The chief medical examiner’s office recorded 586 fatal overdoses in San Francisco in the first 11 months of 2024. That is a nearly 23% decrease, or 174 fewer deaths, compared with the first 11 months of 2023. In total, 810 people died from drug overdoses in 2023, the highest number in city records. The development mirrors both national and statewide data showing overdose deaths on the decline. Provisional data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate a 14.3% decrease in fatal overdoses across California when comparing the 12 months that ended in July 2023 with the year ending last July. Fatal overdoses fell 16.9% nationwide during that period, the Los Angeles Times reports. Recent data show progress in Los Angeles County. Deaths from drug overdoses and poisoning plateaued between 2022 and 2023, after years of historic increases, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health. In 2023, the county recorded 3,092 fatal overdoses, down slightly from 3,220 deaths the year before. San Francisco public health experts attributed the decline to the widespread availability of naloxone, a medication commonly sold under the brand name Narcan that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdoses, as well as buprenorphine and methadone, prescription medications that treat opioid addiction long-term.


“We are cautiously optimistic that our public health interventions are starting to see results in terms of saving lives,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Methadone prescriptions issued by the health department increased by more than 30% and buprenorphine prescriptions by nearly 50% in the last year. The department recently partnered with a “night navigator team” that works after dark to offer treatment, including a telehealth program that quickly connects people who abuse opioids with health care providers who can prescribe medications. The department has logged more than 2,300 calls since the program launched in March. San Francisco has added about 400 residential treatment beds to 2,200 existing spots and tripled the number of street care workers in the last two years, said the public health department and Mayor London Breed’s office. Dr. Christopher Colwell, chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, said he has seen a notable increase in the number of people open to accepting treatment in the last year. “I think a lot of patients are recognizing, more so in the last year than I’ve ever seen, how dangerous opioid use disorder is, watching their friends and colleagues die,” Colwell said.



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